Book Review: The Soul Summoner by Elicia Hyder

This is a fast-paced, entertaining paranormal. Not ghosts as I mistakenly thought but ‘soul readers’.
The Soul Summoner
by Elicia Hyder

File Size: 881 KB
Print Length: 311 pages
Publication Date: November 4, 2015
ASIN: B015ZS7DSS
Genre: Paranormal Suspense, Psychics
My Rating: 4.5 of 5.0

Blessed or cursed with a connection to the souls of others, Sloan Jordan can see the best in people…and the worst. With nothing more than a glance at a photograph, she can judge the living from the dead and the good souls from the evil ones. For twenty-seven years, she's kept her ability a secret, but eleven young women have been murdered in the mountains of North Carolina, and Sloan may be the only hope of finding their killer.

She has just agreed to help Detective Nathan McNamara with the case, when a stranger—who is as alluring as he is terrifying—shows up at her doorstep with a dark past and another puzzling mystery: she can't see his soul at all.

Now Sloan is on the hunt for a deadly psychopath with two irresistible men. One of them would die for her, and the other would kill to keep her safe.

Review:
Sloan has known she was different since grade school but she tried to hide her abilities so she wouldn’t be considered a freak. After all, it is not normal to be able to look at people and know if the person is good or evil, or look at a picture and know if the person is alive or dead. Sloan can also summon people by thinking about them, although she hasn’t really tried to develop that skill.

Sloan works as the Public Information Officer for Buncombe County in North Carolina. When one of the newest detectives, Nathan McNamara, brings a release about a missing person to Sloan she slips by blurting out “he’s dead”. Now Nathan is curious why Sloan said that and what other spooky skills she has.

Nathan coerces Sloan into helping him find a kidnapped child. Then Nathan brings a stack of folders on missing young women who may be victims of a serial killer. Although she tries to resist, Sloan begins to realize that she can use her ‘gift’ to help bring closure to others. Besides, she likes working with Nathan even if he has a girlfriend who happens to be Sloan’s high school nemesis.

Things get even more tense when Sloan and her best friend attend a festival and Sloan spots a man whose ‘soul’ she can’t read. The man shows up at her house that night and Nathan rushes over to protect her. It turns out that Warren, a handsome ex-marine, has a lot in common with Sloan. His ‘gift’ is slightly different and sometimes more lethal. As the two men vie for Sloan’s attention the three begin to work together as pieces of the murder cases begin to fall into a pattern. Can they track the killer before Sloan accidentally summons him and ends up in trouble?

I immediately liked Sloan’s character and the chemistry between her and first Nathan, then Warren. I liked how the author included Sloan’s family and best friend to develop her history and values. The author shares some philosophy of good and evil through the primary characters. The story moves along at a quick pace with mystery, tension and suspense that build to an exciting ending.

I will be picking up more in this series and I am very glad that I have The Detective (a Nathan McNamara’s story) available to read soon. I highly recommend this to readers who like a fast-paced paranormal read.

I had this as a free Kindle book from 2015 plus it was offered this summer as a free book from the Author. It qualifies for my Mount TBR Challenge.