Published: March 23, 2027
Publisher: Tor Books
Series: The League of Lost Souls #1
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 368 (Paperback)
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
Ocean’s 11 meets The Chosen and the Beautiful in a heart-pounding gothic fantasy from KJ Charles!
Make a wish. Lose your soul.
Eleanor Knox and her fellow guests thought the occult ceremony to make wishes was just a party game. They were dead wrong.
Almost seven years later, their accidental deal with the devil is coming to an end. At midnight on Halloween their souls are forfeit, and the man who deceived and entrapped them will triumph.
Giles Wingate has wealth, influence, dangerous lackeys, and a supernatural entity of unimaginable power doing his bidding. Eleanor has a bad-tempered witch, a failed journalist, and her three fellow wishmakers, none of whom can stand the others. Wingate’s going to rip them to shreds.
Eleanor and her reluctant allies have just two months to turn their carelessly made wishes―unwanted, useless, dangerous–into weapons against Giles Wingate’s growing, terrible power.
Damned if they do. Damned if they don’t.
I couldn’t wait to dig into this spring 2027 book release described as Oceans 11 meets The Chosen and the Beautiful, which follows a group of people seven years after they are duped into participating in a real occult ceremony. They find out from another practitioner seeking revenge that they are mere weeks from dying as a result of this cursed deal and that the evil man who perpetrated this will strike again, but against more and more people.
The group of the cursed aren’t exactly the most delightful bunch of people. They’ve had a psychic parasite of sorts attached to them as well which repelled other people, so it’s been a lonely, sad seven years for all of them. While they did get some interesting magical gifts (raising the dead, the ability to find things, etc.) I think they would say the benefits have not outweighed the bad stuff. Even aside from their problems, personality-wise they are MESSY, especially when brought together. Miss Comfort is very sensitive and prone to weeping or offense. Cheney is a loner by choice and is often unnecessarily harsh, seemingly with the intent to wound. Adam is naive in who he trusts. Mrs. Redding is determined to exact her revenge on the practitioner Giles Wingate, to the point that she is unkindly and obviously using these desperate people.
The League of Lost Souls was an immediate attention grabber, but after the cursed folks begin coming back together nigh on seven years later the story slowed down quite a bit. I’m glad I kept on reading because toward the latter half it got very entertaining. And though the characters continue to be absolute wrecks, it improves and they start to work together much more smoothly. I also thought the ending was nicely climactic, though I am somewhat disappointed that I have to wait for the sequel to find out what happens. For some reason I thought it was a standalone when I first requested it.
Overall, I enjoyed this though I was perhaps not invested enough to continue with the sequel (remains to be decided). The comparison to Oceans 11 was apt, though as I haven’t read The Chosen and the Beautiful I can’t say if that’s accurate. There are some fun heist scenes and more where characters are spying or attempting to be undercover. I think would definitely recommend The League of Lost Souls, though it didn’t quite work for me as well as I had hoped.
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