Megan Bannen returns with a new book to break the hearts of YA readers all over the world. With her sophomore novel, Soulswift, Bannen continues to excel at crafting intriguing plots and creating characters that will grip your heart and take you on their journey to whatever end.
All Gelya can remember is a life as a Vessel to the One True God at the Convent of Saint Vinnica. But when the whispers of war come to the convent’s halls, Gelya will soon find herself escaping a deadly betrayal with the help of an enemy soldier, Tavik. Both Gelya and Tavik are firm believers in their own sides of the One True God and The Mother, but their beliefs will be put to the test when Gelya becomes the vessel for Elath the Mother against her will. Sneaking and fighting their way across the land, Gelya and Tavik must begin to rely on and believe in each other if they are to find the truth and save the world.
Before I get into the depths of this review, I wanted to address a large theme in the story. Soulswift deals heavily with religion. While they are fictional religions, there can be a lot of subtext in the religions themselves and that is going to be okay for some and not okay for others. Bannen doesn’t use the religion to right or wrong anyone, but instead she explores the various interpretations religions can have and how anyone can carry doubt within their heart. It is a very interesting exploration and not one I see in YA often. While I am not religious myself, the story still carried weight and emotional depth for me and any reader, religious or not, will be able to make connections to the story and characters in their own ways.
The main characters, Gelya and Tavik, are where this novel really shines. Gelya starts as a devout vessel of the One True God with doubt in her heart and grows into a young woman who takes control of who she is and what she believes. Tavik is the religious soldier from the other side with a tragic past who begins to question his blind allegiance to the Kantari army leaders. Both characters start on opposite sides of the field, but they arc through the story together and end up believing in each other when the world would make them enemies.
In terms of worldbuilding, a majority of it is focused on the religion in the world. There are various countries and cultures in the story, but they were never built up quite as much as the religion. You get the sense that the setting is kind of the generic Euro-centric middle ages setting that is popular in YA, but it just works so well with the story that I can’t fault it.
One intriguing aspect of the story is how Bannen approaches their being language barriers in the world. Often at times, YA books will just have everyone speak the same language and everyone understands everyone and everything is fine. However, Bannen doesn’t do that and I loved the extra layer it brought to the relationships in the story. Gelya, having the ability to speak all of the languages of the world to a certain extent, serves as the translator for characters throughout the story. And though we as the readers always have the dialogue in English, you can get a feel for the complexities of communication with numerous languages. The banter between Gelya and Tavik when discussing contractions is probably some of my favourite relationship building ever.
One language aspect that didn’t work however, was how modern the characters sounded at times. As previously mentioned, you get the vague middle ages Europe feel from the setting, but then the characters start talking about barf (which originated as a word far after the middle ages according to Google) or saying “gimme a hug.” And though things like this would be a normal speech pattern for a modern teen, it just throws you a little out of the atmosphere of the story.
There is a lot to unpack from Soulswift and how you examine everything really boils down to how you come to the story. Bannen covers some heavy topics like religion, blind faith, autonomy, and sacrifice. She does it with a firm, but giving hand, and Soulswift will certainly be a book that will create many discussions. Overall, the novel is a satisfying YA fantasy stand alone. And after reading Soulswift, there is no doubt in my mind that Bannen is the one I will go to whenever I need to have my heart broken.
Soulswift is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of November 17th 2020.
Will you be picking up Soulswift? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
A dark, epic fantasy about a girl who must reevaluate everything she believes after she is betrayed and hunted by the religion that raised her—from Megan Bannen, author of The Bird and the Blade. Perfect for fans of The Winner’s Curse and The Girl of Fire and Thorns.
Gelya is a Vessel, a girl who channels the word of the One True God through song. Cloistered with the other Vessels of her faith, she believes—as all Ovinists do—that a saint imprisoned Elath the Great Demon centuries ago, saving humanity from earthly temptation.
When Gelya stumbles into a deadly cover-up by the Ovinists’ military, she reluctantly teams up with Tavik, an enemy soldier, to survive. Tavik believes that Elath is actually a mother goddess who must be set free, but while he succeeds in opening Her prison, he inadvertently turns Gelya into Elath’s unwilling human vessel.
Now the church that raised Gelya considers her a threat. In a race against the clock, she and Tavik must find a way to exorcise Elath’s presence from her body. But will this release stop the countdown to the end of the world, or will it be the cause of the earth’s destruction? And as Tavik and Gelya grow closer, another question lingers between them: What will become of Gelya?
