Review: Dark Souls

Dark Souls by Paula Morris
Released: August 01, 2011
Young Adult, Hardcover, 304 Pages
Source: Teen Book Scene + Publisher in exchange for honest review and blog tour
Overall: Fabulous!
| Author Website | Goodreads | Twitter |

Welcome to York, England. Mist lingers in the streets. Narrow buildings cast long shadows. This is the most haunted city in the world. . . . 
Miranda Tennant arrives in York with a terrible, tragic secret. She is eager to lose herself amid the quaint cobblestones, hoping she won't run into the countless ghosts who supposedly roam the city. . . . 
Then she meets Nick, an intense, dark-eyed boy who knows all of York's hidden places and histories. Miranda wonders if Nick is falling for her, but she is distracted by another boy -- one even more handsome and mysterious than Nick. He lives in the house across from Miranda and seems desperate to send her some sort of message. Could this boy be one of York's haunted souls? 
Soon, Miranda realizes that something dangerous -- and deadly -- is being planned. And she may have to face the darkest part of herself in order to unravel the mystery -- and find redemption.

My Thoughts:

Is it safe to say there is a resurgence of ghost-stories in the young adult realm? Was there even a true thick of them? Whatever it is, this trend of new ghostly stories is well appreciated and Paula Morris just further staked her claim on young adult shelves.

I really enjoyed the characters of Dark Souls. They all had their own voice and individual beings where the story was concerned. They were intimately woven with the plot and their surroundings but my adoration of Dark Souls didn't come solely from the characters but from Paula Morris' artfully woven attention to detail. Never having been to England it actually felt like I was there. I could see the surroundings all around me and I was walking alongside the cast of characters.

Dark Souls has a bit of a slow going nature. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't and it can be completely hit or miss on me dependent on my mood. For me, this go, holding out came easily despite the slower pace and I found myself appreciating Paula Morris' work all the more. If it weren't for the attention to detail that I found so fabulous Dark Souls just wouldn't be everything that it is.

I also can't forget to mention that I truly had no clue what was going on with the mystery of Dark Souls. I didn't find myself accurately predicting the outcome of this book how I do so many and to me, that alone, is a priceless quality for a book to possess.

With a bit of love, a great deal of mystery, Haunting and historical, Dark Souls is everything that I love in a book.

Dark Souls: Character Book Pick

Welcome Author Paula Morris to Flippin' Fabulous today as well as Miranda who we are getting a close look at her book picks! Pretty fab, right? Thank You for stopping by Paula!
Original Post Date: October 05

Miranda in DARK SOULS is going through a big Gothic-lit phase at the moment. She got into it by reading NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen, which is a satire about the kind of novels really popular when Austen was a teen – books involving creepy castles, dark stairways, locked doors, dark heroes, wide-eyed girls getting into all sorts of trouble …

So the next book Miranda wants to read is one name-checked by Austen: Anne Radcliffe’s THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO. This was a huge bestseller, published when Jane Austen was just 19.

I’m not sure if she’ll like it all that much. Miranda has already read two of the great Victorian Gothic novels – WUTHERING HEIGHTS by Emily Bronte, and JANE EYRE by Emily’s sister Charlotte. She liked them both a lot, though she’s still freaked out by the idea of ‘the madwoman in the attic’ in JANE EYRE. Her mother suggested that Miranda read WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys, which is kind of a prequel to JANE EYRE, telling the story of the ‘madwoman’ and her childhood in the Caribbean, before she married Mr. Rochester and got locked up in his attic.

Because Miranda has just visited Yorkshire in England – which is where DARK SOULS is set – she’s decided to read Bram Stoker’s novel DRACULA. Count Dracula himself comes ashore in England on the coast of North Yorkshire, near a beautiful fishing town called Whitby. Miranda wishes they’d made a day-trip to Whitby while they were staying in the city of York. Maybe she and her brother will have to go back there sometime soon …

Dark Souls by Paula Morris
| Author Website | Goodreads | Twitter |

Welcome to York, England. Mist lingers in the streets. Narrow buildings cast long shadows. This is the most haunted city in the world. . . . 
Miranda Tennant arrives in York with a terrible, tragic secret. She is eager to lose herself amid the quaint cobblestones, hoping she won't run into the countless ghosts who supposedly roam the city. . . . 
Then she meets Nick, an intense, dark-eyed boy who knows all of York's hidden places and histories. Miranda wonders if Nick is falling for her, but she is distracted by another boy -- one even more handsome and mysterious than Nick. He lives in the house across from Miranda and seems desperate to send her some sort of message. Could this boy be one of York's haunted souls? 
Soon, Miranda realizes that something dangerous -- and deadly -- is being planned. And she may have to face the darkest part of herself in order to unravel the mystery -- and find redemption.

Return on October 18th for my review of Dark Souls!