Title: A Veiled & Hallowed Eve
Series: Soulbound: Book Seven
Author: Hailey Turner
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 485 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5 Stars
At a Glance: Seeing this series come to its inevitable fruition is the proverbial double-edged sword. I’ve been anticipating this for years, loved the way Hailey Turner brought the story to a close, and am bereft that I’ve said a fond farewell to these characters and the strange and beautiful world they inhabit.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Death is the last lover you will ever know.
SOA Special Agent Patrick Collins has lived a life full of lies, and it has finally caught up with him. There’s no denying his past any longer, not after giving up the truth to save himself from a murder charge. But truth alone can’t set Patrick free, and time is running out to stop the Dominion Sect from turning his father into a god.
Jonothon de Vere knows survival isn’t a guarantee, but he’s desperate to keep Patrick safe, even as hope slips through his fingers. With the future unknown, Jono will follow Patrick wherever he goes, even to Salem, where a family reunion reveals a bitter secret that was never going to stay buried.
With New York City under control of their god pack, Patrick and Jono must fall back on every alliance they’ve brokered to fill the front lines of a war coming directly to the city streets. The veil is always thinnest on Samhain, and what awaits them on the other side is the stuff of nightmares. For when it tears, all hell will break loose, and the gods will be summoned to face a reckoning the world isn’t ready for.
The stakes have never been higher, failure has never been so deadly, and the Fates have never been kind to heroes. Patrick knows that better than anyone—because everything has a price, every debt always comes due, and it’s finally time for Patrick to pay his.
Review: “This is a beginning, Fenrir said into Jono’s mind.
I thought it was an end? Jono asked.
It is whatever you make it be.”
For fans of Hailey Turner’s Soulbound series, the release of this seventh, and final, book is everything beautiful and bittersweet. It’s all I could’ve possibly hoped for it to be, and then some, as both an ending and a beginning. This is the culmination of everything we readers have been waiting three years for: the settling of Patrick’s soul debt to Persephone; the decisive battle with his father for the continued existence of all humanity; and, of course, Patrick finally expressing, in no uncertain terms, his soul-deep love for Jonothon de Vere, without the threat of failure and the end of the world looming over them.
Turner taps into the anticipatory angst of what we know is coming in the buildup to the face-off with Ethan Greene right from the start, not knowing the where or when or how of this war, because the future is a blank slate not even the Fates can see, and there is a cloying and oppressive atmosphere reflected in the climate and odd weather phenomenon which adds to the emotional turmoil of the story. The sheer breadth of players in this looming fight, players from seemingly every known pantheon and every preternatural being that has ever graced the oral and written legends adorns these pages, and the means by which the author uses each of them to maximize their specific powers at the most crucial of moments is nothing short of a feat of epic storytelling.
There is an impressive tactical flair at work throughout this series, every scene so adroitly maneuvered and each fight choreographed to such perfection that they elevate your heartrate and escalate your sense of dread while leaving you hanging on to some semblance of hope that to the victors fighting for the world’s survival will belong the spoils. When Patrick and his father come face-to-face again, knowing this time will be the last, for better or for worse, the wealth of opportunity Turner had to deliver something awe-inspiring to her readers was not squandered. The depth of emotion alone is something to behold, but add to that Patrick’s fear of losing everyone he loves, and it elevates this book beyond something you read to something you experience right along with its characters.
Family has consistently played a significant role to Patrick as the arc of his storyline has bent toward his father and sister, but the family we choose is integral, and while that is still true in A Veiled & Hallowed Eve, Patrick’s maternal grandmother and various aunts, uncles, and cousins who had no idea he was alive—which is a story unto itself—will now expand his narrative. This found family who make up the balance of Patrick and Jono’s pack, Sage and Wade, have become beloved amongst my lexicon of favorite characters. I’d be lying if I didn’t say especially Wade, who stole my heart in every way possible.
Seeing this series come to its inevitable fruition is the proverbial double-edged sword. I’ve been anticipating this for years, loved the way Hailey Turner brought the story to a close, and am bereft that I’ve said a fond farewell to these characters and the strange and beautiful world they inhabit.
You can buy A Veiled & Hallowed Eve here:
[zilla_button url=”https://smarturl.it/AVeiledHallowedEve” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]
