Black Gate

The Burning Soul
John Connolly
Atria Books (404 pp, $25.00, 1st Hardcover Edition, September 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

This is a rather odd review, in that The Burning Soul is the tenth book in a series by John Connolly, and I have not read the previous nine. I hadn’t planned on reading it at all, as reading the tenth book in a series seemed a bit like trying to watch Breaking Bad starting with season three, so I set it aside in favor of other books. I’d asked for it to review because I had read The Gates by Connolly and liked it a lot, so I thought I might like this.

Then one day I found myself with nothing in the house to read (in personal terms rather a disastrous situation) and thought, “Well, I won’t know what’s going on or who anyone is, but The Burning Soul is a book, so it’ll do until tomorrow.”

I was captured from the first page. The use of language, the mood so quickly and beautifully created, the building of a creepy and atmospheric setting, all wove a spell. I settled in with that lovely feeling of being in very good hands, and finished it two days later.

So this is the review of a book in a series that this reviewer has not yet read.

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