Review: Lonely Souls by Karice Bolton (The Witch Avenue Series #1)

Title: Lonely Souls
Author: Karice Bolton
Publication date: June 29th 2012
Age group: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Cover rating: 4/5
Content rating: 3.5
Buy: Amazon

Description via Goodreads: 

It’s two weeks before Triss turns 18, and her world is about to change into the most magical one imaginable as she readies herself to enter The Witch Avenue Order... that is until her mother’s disappearance. Instead of celebrating her transformation, she finds herself spreading rose petals into her mother’s empty grave. 

When Logan, her best friend from junior high, moves back to town for college, he vows to help her find the answers she so desperately seeks surrounding her mother’s disappearance. As they begin uncovering clues, it becomes apparent that the life of white magic they both grew up loving is not what the majority practices, and their lives are in danger. 

With a haunting feeling that her mother may still be alive, she begins to hear a call to the wilderness. Triss realizes that in order to find the answers she needs, she must learn the ways of her ancestors and become the hunter, not the hunted before it’s too late, and she becomes part of the lonely souls.

 My thoughts:
Lonely Souls is the first book in Karice Bolton's new Witch Avenue series and it certainly doesn't disappointment! It was a fantastic beginning to what looks to be a very promising and exciting series. I wanted to give this one a go because despite loving magical books, I don't tend to stumble across many of them. So of course, this sounded like exactly my kind of thing and I ended up really enjoying it. It has many of the familiar elements of YA paranormal books but manages to stand out quite well.

This novel starts off with an emotional bang. We get to read about the moment our protagonists, Beatrice ''Triss'' realizes that her mother is missing and her world comes crashing down around her. I cared for Triss right from the beginning because she's very much a normal girl trying to deal with a lot. She had been looking forward to entering The Witch Avenue Order and all of a sudden, her whole future changes. It's definitely easy to empathize with Triss and to wish for everything to work out for her.

The guy in this book- Logan- is a nice guy from the very beginning which is actually quite refreshing! He's very kind and caring, always looking out for Triss even though they'd been out of contact for a while before he turned back up. Logan has a bit of mystery about him though and it was really interesting getting to know more about him. I liked reading Triss and Logan's interactions and the book had me smirking many times!

Lonely Souls has plenty of mystery and intrigue which kept me glued to the book until the very end. It was definitely an interesting start to the series and I'll be looking forward to the rest of the books being published!