Review--Soul Thief by Jana Oliver

RILEY BLACKTHORNE IS BEGINNING TO LEARN THAT THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN DEATH BY DEMON. AND LOVE IS JUST ONE OF THEM...

Riley has about had it up to here. After the devastating battle at the Tabernacle, trappers are dead and injured--her boyfriend, Simon, gravely so--and now her beloved late father’s been illegally poached from his grave by a very powerful necromancer. As if that’s not enough, there's Ori, one sizzling-hot freelance demon hunter who’s made himself Riley’s unofficial bodyguard, and Beck, a super overprotective “friend” who acts more like a grouchy granddad. With all the hassles, the seventeen-year-old is almost ready to leave Atlanta behind.

But as Atlanta’s demon count increases, the Vatican finally sends its own demon hunters to take care of the city’s “little” problem, and pandemonium breaks out. Only Riley knows that she might be the center of Hell’s attention: An extremely powerful Grade 5 demon is stalking her, and her luck can't last forever… 

WARNING, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FROM BOOK 1, THE DEMON TRAPPER'S DAUGHTER!

Super wow! Jana Oliver writes a seriously KA series here!! I love Riley, she's the feisty YA teen I love reading about! She has the attitude and yet the vulnerability that makes her easily likable for me! And Soul Thief really takes this new series to a new level!

We pick up pretty much right away from where we left off with little time in between, a week or two at best. And Riley has more troubles than ever before. First the fact that her boyfriend Simon is still healing and acting really down after having survived the attack--Riley after all did make a bargain with an Angel for his life to be saved.

Riley is also still trying to find the necromancer who raised her dad from the grave and give him a piece of her mind. There's still the other mundane problems she still has to deal with, rent, bills, groceries, school and the nasty girls that she has class with, a best friend who is still a little distant, and oh so much more. Plus there's Ori, the super-hot freelance hunter who's keeping a special eye on her and of course Beck who keeps acting wayyy over protected for her wellfare. Riley has way more to deal with than any teenage girl should!

Riley is determined to find out who raised her father from the grave as well as solving the mystery behind the bogus Holy Water. But when it starts to look like no one wants to believe her, she only has herself to count on. Ori does start hanging around quite a bit lately, more so than he did last time, and his identity finally gets revealed and it was quite the shocker! So did not see that coming!

Just about any problem you could imagine comes knocking at Riley's door, including debt collectors looking for the money her father owed them and an ex-boyfriend.

I truly love how strong Riley is. She gets a lot of crap thrown at her, yet she keeps going. Even when she makes mistakes she does her damnest to make things right. She's traveling all over the city trying to figure out what's going on with the Holy Water distribution and wanting to find her dad and his necromancer. But things just aren't in the cards for her.

I know I'm kind of repeating myself here, but I can't get into too many details because then it leads to spoilers, big spoilers that have big impacts on other events in the book, so you can probably sense my frustration as well! But seriously this was a great book! I totally loved it from beginning to end and the end was quite a killer! What makes things worse is that Forgiven, the next in the series doesn't release until Winter 2012! Argh! And something tells me it won't be the early winter, like January and February! We're talking a year! There is a sneak peek at the next book at the end, but after seeing the Winter 2012 part I knew it would be better to just skip reading it entirely or I would make myself even more crazy with all the waiting I do for so many books!

Overall rating 5/5 stars