Soulkeeper by David Dalglish – Review

Published: March 19, 2019

Publisher: Orbit Books

Series: The Keepers #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 704 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

In the first book of USA Today bestseller David Dalglish’s epic fantasy trilogy, a warrior priest must answer the call and protect his world from monsters, when ancient magic suddenly returns to his land.

Devin Eveson is a Soulkeeper, travelling through remote villages as a preacher and healer. But when a dragon awakens – the size of a mountain and leaving great chasms in its wake – the veil is torn, flooding the land with ancient magic and forgotten races. Now Devin must set aside his words of peace and accept his new role: slayer of monsters and protector of the human race.

But not all the creatures that have re-awakened mean humanity harm. And as Devin slowly befriends people of these new races, his discomfort in his role grows. But Soulkeepers must slay without mercy. And even sympathisers risk their wrath.

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I took this absolute chonk of a book on vacation with me a few weeks back and read it in TWO DAYS. It’s over 700 pages and I was hooked the whole duration of the book. I was thoroughly taken with the story, the characters, and the idea of a world where magical creatures have suddenly reemerged long after they had become mere myth.

Devin Eveson is a soulkeeper, essentially a travelling preacher and healer that also sort of shoos souls from the deceased so that they may be burned rather than buried. When a sudden change washes through the world (somewhat literally in places), Devin is in a remote mountain village. His location affords him an up close and rather horrifying encounter with the newly returned magic and he swiftly travels to the town where his borther-in-law resides to see if he survived. They two then travel to the main city, where things have changed just as drastically, though perhaps not as obviously at first. Some humans have acquired powers of healing and elemental control and a dragon the size of a mountain – one that I actually imagined as a mountain sized hermit crab – has parked itself outside the city gates. A green-clad murderer is stalking the streets and turning his victims into ghastly “art” and monstrous owls hunt the streets at night. This book was quite the amalgam of supernatural entities and plot threads.

There were quite a few POVs in this book, the majority of which I greatly enjoyed. I thought some of the dialogue was a little cheesy and things felt a bit “extra” or over the top at times, which is really saying something because this is a fantasy book and that practically guarantees something a teensy bit ridiculous. There was so much going on in this book that it was a bit overwhelming, though not difficult to keep up with if that makes any sense. I was pretty invested in this book by the end and I’ll definitely be reading the next one, meaning this was good enough for the time investment to be worth it!

Overall, this was a fun book that went extra heavy on the fantastical creatures, though their sudden presence was justified well. It wasn’t a perfect read for me though it was a solid one and honestly lived up appropriately to my expectations. For me this was a perfect vacation read – not too serious and one that could easily keep me occupied without my attention wandering at all!