Sunday, August 2, 2015

Soul Meaning (Seventeen #1), by A.D. Starling (author), Michael Bower (narrator)

AD Starrling, July 2015 (original publication February 2012)

Lucas Soul has a problem. There are people who are trying to kill him, and they've just succeeded--for the fifteenth time.

There are two immortal races, the Crovirs and the Bastians, who share Earth with humans. They were at war with each other for millennia, until an uneasy truce was reached at the time of the Black Death. But one thing is still absolutely taboo: intermarriage, or more specifically breeding, between Crovir and Bastian.

Lucas Soul is the son of a Crovir father and a Bastian mother. His mother and father were murdered when he was a small boy, and he was killed for the first time. For centuries they hunted him, and killed him another thirteen times.

Immortals can only survive sixteen deaths; the seventeenth is fatal. For the last century, they seem to have lost interest, perhaps finally convinced he has no intention of using the one ability that makes him a really dreadful danger to them.

But now they're after him again, and he has no idea why. And with only one more death left before the final one, he needs to find out. Soon he and his human friend and business partner, ex-Marine and ex-cop Reid Hasley, are off on a hair-raising chase from Boston to Washington to much of Europe, finding unexpected allies and enemies, and unsuspected secrets about Soul's family history.

Also, of course, uncovering a very dangerous conspiracy.

The story is fast-paced, exciting, and interesting. Starrling has built a fascinating history and culture for the immortals, and some real character development has gone into any character who has more than a line or two.

This is the first of a series, which always makes me wary, but it's a solid start, and I look forward to seeing more.

Minor oddity: The excellent narrator's voice is American, or at least North American, but Soul's vocabulary is often distinctly British. I have no idea if the combination of a British vocabulary with an American accent was intentional or accidental.


I received a free copy of the audiobook from the author in exchange for an honest review.