Book Tour + Giveaway: Soul Meaning by A.D. Starrling

Soul Meaning (Seventeen Book One)
by A.D. Starrling

Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal
Publication Date: July 13, 2012
Publisher: Self-Published

‘My name is Lucas Soul.
Today, I died again.
This is my fifteenth death in the last four hundred and fifty years.’

The Crovirs and the Bastians. Two races of immortals who have lived side by side with humans for millennia and been engaged in a bloody war since the very dawn of their existence. With the capacity to survive up to sixteen deaths, it was not until the late fourteenth century that they reached an uneasy truce, following a deadly plague that wiped out more than half of their numbers and made the majority of survivors infertile. 

Soul is an outcast of both immortal societies. Born of a Bastian mother and a Crovir father, a half breed whose very existence is abhorred by the two races, he spends the first three hundred and fifty years of his life being chased and killed by the Hunters.

One fall night in Boston, the Hunt starts again, resulting in Soul’s fifteenth death and triggering a chain of events that sends him on the run with Reid Hasley, a former US Marine and his human business partner of ten years. When a lead takes them to Washington DC and a biotechnology company with affiliations to the Crovirs, they cross the Atlantic to Europe, on the trail of a French scientist whose research seems intrinsically linked to the reason why the Hunters are after Soul again.

From Paris to Prague, their search for answers will lead them deep into the immortal societies and bring them face to face with someone from Soul’s past. Shocking secrets are uncovered and fresh allies come to the fore as they attempt to put a stop to a new and terrifying threat to both immortals and humans. 

Time is running out for Soul. Can he get to the truth before his seventeenth death, protect the ones he loves and prevent another immortal war?

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About the Author

AD Starrling was born on the small island nation of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and came to the UK at the age of twenty to study medicine. After five years of hard graft earning her MD and another five years working all of God’s hours as a Pediatrician  she decided it was time for a change and returned to her first love, writing. Soul Meaning is her debut novel and the first in a supernatural thriller series entitled Seventeen. She currently lives in Warwickshire in the West Midlands, where she is busy writing the second novel in the series while drinking gallons of tea. She still practices medicine. AD Starrling is her pen name. 

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My Thoughts

This book was...intense. So intense I ended up exhausted and just wanted it to end. Even though I did want it to be over already I keept getting sucked in at every action scene, which is like 90% of the book, so that  was probably a good thing.

This was one hell of a book. There was so much action it was ridiculous. I don't think anyone in the book slept for more than 2 hours straight. Good thing they are immortals cause I don't know how they would have managed all that. Speaking of which Reid deserved a freaking medal for keeping up with all the mortals and managing to survive through it all with a little help.

There was so much betrayal, inner fighting, and secrets that it took a while for it to all really make sense. The evil plan that the good guys were trying to stop was one hell of a plan. Genius really. Have to give the old lady props for organizing all that. Once the plan was figured out, the rest of the plot was pretty straightforward, even some last minute secrets weren't really that hard to guess, but in this case none of that mattered cause the action just dwarfed it all.

Now I am always happy when there are lots of action scenes but there were almost too many here. It was action scene after action scene and it started getting more and more blown out of proportion. They were shooting grenade launchers in the middle of a university campus in broad daylight for god's sake! To say they were getting bold was an understatement. There was jumping from burning helicopters onto skyscraper roofs. There was HALO jumping. It was insane.

At first I loved all the action. It would be Lucas and Reid following clues going from country to country and the bad guys right behind them with shoot outs, car chases, grenades, some old school Japanese sword fighting thrown in for good measure as well. But it all just got be too much. Lucas kept getting opportunities to kill major players halfway into the book and he never took them. He kept them alive intentionally. Now I understand he wanted information to figure out the plan so there fore keep them alive. But dude, take them with you then! Don't just leave them there and walk out...How else are you supposed to get the info?

The romance was just weird, between cousins too. I could overlook that but the romance was just strange. I don't get why they were exchanging I love you's so quickly. Then again Lucas did keep going into fights so I guess there is that. Speaking of which at the last big fight scene Lucas is going all panicky cause they are going to kill Anna, but she is an immortal..and it isn't her last death....so why the huge deal? It would probably be best if she stayed dead for awhile so she wasn't a distraction, but that's just me I guess.

There were so many characters here and they were all really well done. I loved Reid and Lucas' banter, they added the much needed comic relief between all the fighting and dying that was going on. This was also the biggest dysfunctional family I have ever read about.

And finally we have the epilogue, which I didn't understand what so ever. The author is setting up the story line for the next book, but I didn't get it. Can't really elaborate more than that cause then I would be spoiling, but it just didn't make any sense to me at all.

With all that said I'm not sure if I'll be picking up the next book. I might, just to see if I can figure out what they meant with the epilogue, but somehow I doubt it. If you like action with some paranormal stuff thrown in then you should give this one a try. You might like it more than me.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

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