Review: Tainted Soul

Title: Tainted Soul
Author: Sam C. Leonhard
Series: Tainted
Pages: 314
Published: 2011

Summary: Gabriel Jordan, part-time werewolf and full-time private investigator, should be living a happy life. Three years ago, he was a homeless thief; now he’s got a loving partner and a job he enjoys, he lives in a nice house, and he doesn’t have to worry about tomorrow. So why the sudden urge to cheat on Aleksei, the handsome and occasionally deceptive fae he loves? Why does Gabriel feel compelled to flee the life he’s built for himself?

Someone’s calling him. Someone’s looking for him. Someone holds his destiny in her hands. The portals to the hidden worlds have become unstable, even dangerous. Fear and madness linger in the dark. Panic and nightmares chase him, but Gabriel can’t fight an enemy he can’t see, and even turning into his wolf form may not be enough to save him.

Review: I have been putting this review off for a while because of all of the feelings that have taken over my poor mind after having finished this book. When I initially read the first book in the Tainted series, Tainted Blood, I found that I really enjoyed the characterization and the way that Gabriel and Aleksei interacted. In Tainted Soul, I found that the plotline was far superior to that of the first novel, something that surprised me because I don’t tend to like sequels more than the original novel. It was a refreshing surprise.

In Tainted Soul, Gabriel keeps hearing this voice that’s telling him to harm his boyfriend, to cheat on him and even kill him. Now, I can’t begin to imagine what in the world I would do if I were in Gabriel’s situation, but I know for a fact that I would not be able to handle it nearly as well as he did. The way that he managed to ignore the voice so long and to the point that he actually thought he’d listened to it when he hadn’t…it was very impressive.

The thing that I liked most about Tainted Soul was that we finally got the chance to discover what Gabriel really was, and it’s pretty impressive. I can’t imagine being just a werewolf or just a faerie, let alone the combination that Gabriel discovers is what he actually is. The discovery and the plot line that led up to it was really what captivated me with Tainted Soul. I had started the book in the beginning of February and ended up setting it down after a little while because I was a little bit dissatisfied with how the story was starting

As with Tainted Blood, I had some issues with the sex scenes. They weren’t nearly as bad as in Tainted Soul, because there thankfully wasn’t an entire chapter worth, but there was one and a half that I really wasn’t sure needed to be in the novel and were just page fillers. I understand that the novel called for sex scenes, but I really don’t think that we needed all of the ones that were actually in Tainted Soul.

I have to say that the ending was quite literally my favourite part of the novel and what made the sequel better than the original novel. The climax of the novel was so dramatic that I was sneaking the chance to read it during my math class, almost daring my teacher to catch me as I desperately determined that I had, had to find out what happened next. There was a part of the novel that left me heartbroken and a part of it that left me screaming for joy (not in math class, I promise).

Overall, I’d love to see what would potentially happen next in Gabriel and Aleksei’s lives, but if the series ends there, then I would have to say that I’m very glad that I got the chance to read the books. Tainted Soul surprised me when I read it, proving to me that I could be wrong when it came to if I would like the book or not. I thought that I’d get bored with it around page 80 and that we’d get to the point of no return when I find myself unable to finish books, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was a joy to read, and I’m really very glad that I requested the title on NetGalley.

Thank you to Ariel at Dreamspinner Press for providing me with Tainted Blood so that I could read Tainted Soul, and thank you to Dreamspinner Press for providing Tainted Soul for review.

Rating: ★★★★ 4.5/5 Stars