Review--Soulbound by Tessa Adams

AS THE SEVENTH DAUGHTER OF A SEVENTH DAUGHTER--AND A MEMBER OF ISPWITCH'S ROYAL FAMILY--XANDRA MORGAN SHOULD BE A WITCH OF INCREDIBLE POWER. BUT THINGS DON'T ALWAYS TURN OUT LIKE YOU EXPECT...

While she hasn't lived up to her family's expectations, Xandra has come to terms with her latent magic and made a life for herself in Austin, Texas, running a coffee shop where she makes potions of a nonmagical nature. While things aren't perfect, Xandra is happy--until she runs into powerful warlock Declan Chumomisto.

Xandra hasn't seen Declan in years, and though she's still overwhelmed by his power, she doesn't trust him. And when her own powers awaken one night and lead her to the body of a woman in the woods bearing the symbol of Isis--the same one that has marked Xandra since the day she met Declan--she's filled with a terrible suspicion, soon confirmed: The woman is connected to him.

Xandra doesn't want to believe that Declan is capable of murder but as soon as the body count mounts, and Xandra's own powers spiral out of control, she's not sure she can trust her own instincts...

Tessa Adams' Soulbound sounded like a very intriguing read, a paranormal book with a murder mystery going on. What's not to love? Xandra was an enjoyable heroine and Declan was a very mysterious kind of guy, and the mystery was very good, so all in all, it was a good read.

The story buildup took awhile for me to get into. We get a nice prologue depicting Xandra's birth and then the first chapter shows us Xandra and Declan's first meeting at her magical "coming out" party when she was nineteen, which ended in a disaster and her not having any kind of powers at all. When the story finally starts in the present day, it's to see Xandra at her family's home for the holidays and right away, she's poisoned by her mother!

With good intentions, her mother has been experimenting for years on potions or other oddities to get Xandra's powers starting. Xandra is from a family of witches, it's only natural that she would be one herself, but for some reason, she's just not.

It's not long before the first body is found during the party and this is when things start to go very wrong for Xandra. The sheriff of the town who has a grudge against Xandra wants to place blame on her, but it's clear that Xandra isn't the murderer and that's when we leave Ispwitch and this murder case. Xandra returns home to Austin after the holidays and gets back to her regular life. But the murders don't stop.

Naturally when Declan appears back in her life, we are meant to suspect him. But yet, I didn't get the creepy vibe from him. There's definite spark between him and Xandra and a lot of history too, of course it was history crammed into one night and one night only, but Xandra can feel the strange connection between them and it kind of freaks her out. Which then leads her to next body. Xandra also notices the weird similarities between the dead women and her own appearance, but it is just too weird for her to think on long.

All the while during the murder investigation, Xandra and Declan keep running into one another and the feelings that Xandra had back when she was nineteen and first kissed Declan return again and again. The romance between them kind of hits fast with a punch, but it took some building. There were all these old feelings from the past that led Xandra to feeling more for him.

The mystery element was really good! I devised in my mind who the killer was fairly early on. Simply a guess. Although my mind kept going back and forth as the story moved on. For awhile, near the end, I was sure it was Declan after all, it definitely messes with the mind when there are so many suspects. I can say that I was right about the who-done-it though! Obviously not going to say who I suspected though!!

The ending really packed a whopper of a punch with the revelations. I was blown away, because it seemed kind of out there. I didn't detect any evidence or hints that this was the reason behind everything. So that part was a little too shocking. Unless I did miss something in the beginning which is starting to occur to me as a slight possibility, but yeah. I was totally blindsided by this little detail.

While all things are good and resolved at the end, there is still enough left to make you wonder "what's next"? There is going to be a lot on Xandra's plate in the novels to come. And I cannot wait to see what that might be, I still hope there will be a mystery of some kind that needs solving! I love a good mystery mixed with paranormal. Which probably stemmed from my love of Scooby-Doo as a child! Of course those vampires and werewolves weren't real, at least in the novels they are!!

This was an incredible mystery and a pretty good paranormal read, together they make for an enjoyable read! There were a few times that things got a little too wordy, like with explanations of how the magic works and other magic related items and history bits, but nothing to totally make the book a bomb. This will definitely be a series I stick with!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars