Soul Born

by Kevin James Breaux

[Kim Deister]

Soul Born is the first full-length novel by Kevin James Breaux, and the first of a trilogy. From the moment, I opened this book, I was hard-pressed to put it down. There is typically a pretty predictable formula in fantasy tales, with the battle between good and evil, the struggle for power, the quests for victory and the inevitable hero. While this novel had all of those elements, it definately was so much more. Because of the normal predictability, I kept expecting events to go in certain directions, and they just didn't and I loved that fresh take on fantasy. It was definately not a light and happy tale, but dark with lots of action and unexpected twists. With a lot of epic works, you have a lot of back story before you get to the real meat of the story. I really enjoyed the fact that this story didn't do that, but put you immediately in the story from the very beginning. You learned the secrets and reasons for the unfolding story as you went along and it kept me thoroughly engrossed.

The story revolved around three main characters: Karn (the warrior with the mysterious past), Opal (the enchantress struggling for recognition), and Tala (the elf shunned by her own kind). Each of these characters have a common goal, to destroy an invading warlord before he destroys them and all that they know. There was no clear cut good versus evil with these characters, nor with any of the supporting characters, which only added to the ability to relate to them as people. As in real life, the characters have motives that aren't always pure and are faced with choices that may sometimes be self-serving and hurt others around them. Because of that, some of the characters were sometimes hard to like, but that was as it should be. There times in the story where I felt like I was personally invested in those characters, completely emotionally engaged with them. I absolutely love a story that can pull me in emotionally like that!

The ending was unexpected and great and left me waiting impatiently for the next book!