The Worth of a Soul

Soul of the Sword

By: Julie Kagawa

Publishes on: June 18th

Just want to give fair warning Soul of the Sword is the sequel to Shadow of the Fox which was one of my favorite reads last year. So there will be spoilers for that book but not this one 🙂

Also I received a copy of Soul of the Sword from Netgalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

Yumeko has a lot on her plate. She’s still has the scroll that she and her friends are charged with taking to a secret hidden temple before any one of a number of life threatening, Empire destroying world ending enemies get their hands on it.

And also her friend, main protector, companion and maybe the guy she likes has been possessed by the horrible murderous pissed off demon whose been trapped in his sword for a couple hundred years.

So yeah, problems.

Our half-fox girl whose a big believer in the glass is half full wants to save him. On the plus side demon boy wants/needs to unite the scrolls so he is headed to the same place as  they are so it’s not that much of a hey, what about the world and not just your boyfriend problem.

I enjoyed this one a great deal. I think for a sequel I’m pretty happy with where we stand at the end. Actually parts of the ending surprised me a bit. The characters remain strong and likable even as we get a deeper delve into the Shadow Clan and the world that surrounds them.

I felt like Kagawa was walking a line with our demon Hakaimono- I mean he is a little over the top at times and we get some I’m going to cut out her heart while you watch villain monologues but on that he has been locked in a sword for centuries so I can forgive a little pontificating and maybe not being as quick as he could. We’ll see where our many demons/ghosts go in book three.

We also get a surprising relationship which I didn’t expect the only thing there was we see it mostly through Yumeko spying on them, not on purpose and she is supposed to be young and sheltered but it still felt a bit like okay girl, let’s give them their privacy move along. But regardless I’m looking forward to seeing where that goes as well. So long as she realizes that spying is wrong.

There was also this weird beat where they were burying a friend and it kind of came off like, “Oh maybe we should also bury that poor guy who helped us and got caught in the crossfire.”

“Oh fine, if we have too!”

But that’s just nitpicking I suppose because overall the sequel delivered and I’m looking forward to the final book if not another long wait for it 🙂

Recommend: Yes.

I’d recommend both books in the series as a whole but they are good fun summer reads.