Every Soul

Melodrama and erotica fight for center stage in this jarringly uneven opening to the Every Soul contemporary series. Bain was the star of the UConn basketball team and was planning to play professionally until his twin sister, Kinsey, took her own life. In the six months since then, Bain has spiralled into an abyss of grief and pills. Meanwhile, Arion’s fiancé, Nate, is missing and presumed killed in action in Afghanistan. Believing she will never find love again, she restricts herself to emotionless sexual encounters. After a chance meeting at a bar, Arion and Bain discover that they share the experience of traumatic loss, and they quickly develop an intense relationship and begin to turn their lives around. Numerous weighty issues—such as Bain’s reliance on pills, his mother’s alcohol abuse, and the suspicious circumstances of Kinsey’s death—are hastily swept away, often with anticlimactic resolutions. Given those flaws and a surprise cliffhanger ending, this launch is likely to alienate more readers than it draws in. [em](BookLife) [/em]