More Cora and Echo in Souls by Ednah Walters

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                As promised more reviews!  Let's jump right in.  Today we have Souls by Ednah Walters, which is the 2nd book in the Grimnirs series and book 5 in the Runes series.  Now for a brief run down the Runes series is the main story and told from the POV of Raine.  The Grimnirs series has  two books in it thus far  and follow in tangent with the original, however,  focuses on Cora and are told from her perspective.  I adore having Cora's thoughts on things and having a more central story focused on Cora and Echo.  These stories also come out in two versions, the original and a clean version that tones down the sex/language to me appropriate for younger readers.  You can also check out my reviews for Runes, Grimnirs, and Seeress.

                Now down to the goodies which will contain spoilers from the previous books in the series so if you're not caught up yet go read them and come back.  You've been warned.  So we left off after a bit of a battle royal in the forest with the Valkyries and the evil Immortals.  Well Cora is still doing her thing in helping souls find closure, even though her sexy soul reaper boyfriend Echo doesn't always like the toll it takes on her.  Still he is a good boyfriend and is her perfect partner in this as he reaps the souls after she finishes.  That is until she meets with a dark soul.  Yep, and not just some twisted psycho but something much darker.  Now Echo wants her to stop.  She is caught between what she feels is right and what Echo wants from her.  Add to that the other reapers trying to track this dark soul down and you have a mess.  Even her Valkyrie friends don't understand why she would ever help a dark soul.  Cora feels there is more to it than she's been told and that this dark soul may be the key to stopping a much more sinister plot against her and her friends. 

                As I mentioned I love me some Cora and Echo.  He is such a good guy bad boy.  He is a reaper, one of Hel's best, and he is very confident in himself but when he's with Cora he's different.  I enjoy watching the different interactions with him and seeing how Cora interrupts him.  She knows how it would look to others and what she has given up to be with him but she doesn't care.  Some things she still has her moments on, come on what girl wouldn’t like a boyfriend to take her out in public ever once an a while.  Still reading them together even when they don’t agree, because lets face it they're both stubborn.  Its swoon worthy.  His need for her comes through and makes me want to warm him up after his trips to Hel.  And Cora, she has grown a lot over the series.  She was all hot guy of the week blog but now she has seen what's really out there and wants to help people.  She isn't the type to sit back and let her supernatural boyfriend do all the work, she wants to contribute too.  So she helps souls even when it takes a toll on her.  She is a strong character who takes what is given to her and rolls with it the best way she can.  At the same time she is totally mushy and in love with her guy even though she hates being 'that girl' sometimes.  Though I would never classify Cora as a girl who needs her guy to be complete, I simply think that what they have makes them both stronger and its okay to need/want that. 

                We've covered their chemistry.  Scorching.  Echo has also grown since we first met him and although he doesn’t care to have a ton of people around he is slowly coming out of his solitary life.  He has friends now even if no one will admit it.  Cora is good for him in that way, she loves him and their time together but she isn't given up her friends and family to spend every second with him but instead pulls him into it.  Even if he doesn't always make it easy or play fair.  I also liked that in this one we got more of Raine, Torin, and the gang.  Cora's relationship with Echo is great but we also see more of her with Raine.  They had been friends for years and we see that closeness in here.  I could easily see their relationship, not many words needed to discuss something, just needing a hug, and always standing by one another in any situation.  Also unlike Raine, Cora has to do all this supernatural stuff without her parents knowing which means lies and cover stories.  That can't be easy for when you have a good and close relationship with your parents like she has.  And I love that the author didn’t just shove that aside either and made it clear. 

                Oh the feels.  I won't say when, if you haven't read this book, but there were a couple of scenes where it pulled on my heart strings and gave me a serious case of the feels where I had to stop reading for a bit and do something else.  Hey I was at work and I refuse to cry because of a book at work; the guys would never let me live it down and I'd scare people away if they came to the window.  So keep tissues handy. 

December is a long time...

                Not just Cora/Echo hotness, or tears, there was a lot of action going on between the fighting and the mystery to solve.  We also learn more about the marks put on Cora that make her soul cat nip.  It also left plenty of questions unanswered that I hope will come up in the next book.  The stories really do line up perfectly and I can't wait to see what happens next in Witches in December.   With all this, if it wasn't clear I give Souls 5 Stars.  Anyways Souls came out September 29th so check it and the other books in the Runes and Grimnirs series out.  You can click here for a list of the books in order to make it super easy.

Seeress by Ednah Walters

                Okay so as you guys will remember, it was only last week that I reviewed Grimnirs Book 2.5 in the Runes series by Ednah Walters.  Now Seeress Book 3 was released April 28th.  I ordered it that same day and read it pretty quickly but the last few days have been pretty swamped. 

                Anyways I am excited to share my thoughts on Seeress.  Be warned though this review will contain spoilers from the previous 3 books so read on at your own risk. 

                In this book we go back to Raine, where in Grimnirs we got a switch to Cora's POV and I admit I was curious if that would continue or even a swap back and forth kind of deal.  No we stick with Raine which I don't mind at all, but I do hope to get more of Cora's POV in the future knowing how much I enjoyed it.  Where was I?  Oh yes I was back with Raine Cooper who is a complicated girl who is pretty much sure of a few things in life, that she loves Torin (then again who wouldn't), and she is a powerful seeress, even if she doesn't know what that means yet.  She is still training but with things spinning around a mile a minute to say her life is chaotic is an understatement.  Her mother is sequestered, her father is dying, her best friend Erick is in Hel, she's a seeress without visions, then when they come they are all messed up, who's a girl to talk to? 

               

                What do you do when your visions are so disturbing and they try to make you doubt the only things you are sure of in your crazy world?  She finally finds someone who is able to help clear things up but Torin forbids her from seeing them.  Can their love survive without answers or trust?

                Now as with the rest of the books we have the characters we've come to love.  Raine is still the girl we met in the first book but she has grown with the series thus far, I mean she kind of had to with everything she'd been through.  It feels like a natural development.  She is still confused and unsure of so many things, and I find that refreshing.  Having power and knowing how and when to use it are very different things.  Then there is her relationship with Torin.  If you remember I wrote how much I loved his dark tortured soul.  He is horribly flawed but still good.  He's a good guy but he's kind of an ass.  He does things, all be it for the right reasons, but he is a jerk about it.  He is overpowering, manipulative, and dominating, all of which could have turned me completely off from him as a character if it wasn't balanced with his sweet heart and his clear cut reasons why he thought it was the best solution.  This could have also turned me away from Raine, giving into someone who is going to demand you do as they say, not hot.  Raine calls him on his crap.  She fights back but she also knows when to pick her battles.  And I give her credit, she gets upset but she isn't as rash as I might be.  I'm just saying, someone tells me they won't allow me to do something, that just makes me want to do it all the more and probably will just to prove no one allows me to do anything.  Yeah, I'm working on my own issues of adjusting/compromising.

                We also get to see more into the world of the others.  The Valkyries have been around for a long time, some coming from different areas and different reigns.  We got a bit more depth and back story into some of the others which I liked.  Also we learn more about our the other types of magic can exist in this world with everything else.  I liked learning about the witches also, a whole other community.  I also enjoy that even as they are preparing and dealing with so much major stuff they still deal with the normal teenage things that help ground them, TV marathons, sleepovers, double dates, high school gossip and an after school job.  What can be more grounding than something simple.

                Overall I really liked the newest book in the series and can't wait for me, keeping fingers crossed for more from Cora's POV also.  There is so much brewing all waiting for Ragnarök and I can see many more juicy stories coming out of this before the end. 

Rating:  5 Artavo

                Keeping with my productivity, I have a few more ARC's that I'm excited about.  Two of which come out on the same day, and I only got them 6 days in advance, so the review won't be too advanced haha.  I have finished 1, Avoiding Alpha, by Aileen Erin sequel to Becoming Alpha which I previously reviewed here.  Also don't forget to scroll back, my authorinterview with Colette Ballard and giveaway is still up until Saturday so get your entries in. 

                Also as a side note, I was recently having problems with the comments, people commenting but they never show up.  I contacted tech support and they have advised it was the way the comment field was set up, I had the default used for display and only made adjustments to let everyone post without having to have an account because that can scare people away and I don't want that!  So if you were one of the people who tried to post and it didn't show up, I'm sorry I missed it and I think everything is back in order now! 

Grimnirs by Ednah Walters

                Grimnirs was an ARC from NetGalley and book 2.5 in the Runes series series by Ednah Walters.  Now I read book 1, Runes some time back and really liked it, eager to read more but at the time there was no information on book 2.  So when I saw this book, similar cover I was excited and even more so when I was approved.  Then I checked and saw it was book 2.5 and realized I had missed something.  I had checked back periodically after reading book 1 but somehow missed book 2 Immortals.  So I had to read it before starting this one.  So I made a quick purchase on my kindle and was on a roll.  This review will have some spoilers for the previous 2 books, so be warned.

                The first thing about Grimnirs is that is isn't from Raine's prespective as the previous books but this time from Cora's.  Instead of Cora being a supporting character she was front and center and Raine and Torin were in the secondary status.  With that being said it takes place towards the end of Immortals when Cora returns home from PMI where no one has visited her for a month and she is feeling pretty crazy and abandoned.  The guy she's been in love with secretly for years is gone without even a simple goodbye and now all she wants is normal.  No more seeing souls or the reapers, Grimnirs, collecting them.  She is in no way looking for a new guy, until Echo appears in her bedroom, not a surprise I'd mind finding in my bedroom, just saying.  Bright side is him being around makes the souls stop bothering her.  Echo is hot, but not her type, even if the connection is there.  He's arrogant, cocky, and oh yeah a Grimnir.   Not the type of guy to have around for 'normal' but then again, normal may be over rated and who can control the heart.

                I liked seeing things from her prospective, you get a fresh take on the story as a whole and after what she went through it would have been hard to explain any other way.  It brought new characters and a new take on the ones readers of the series already love.  Plus watching Cora go through this psychological and emotional trial made her character so much more endearing.              Plus it gave us a different view on the new comer Echo who the Valkyries are not so fond of.  He's mentioned, as are Grimnirs in general, in the previous books but he wasn't what I was expecting.  Cora falls for him despite logic and is able to see a different side to him because he is able to show her a different side.  It expands how he became top Grimnir, Hel's favorite.

                Also as a series as a whole as much as I love Raine and her perspective, seeing her from her best friends eyes was nice.  You see different things, things you never think about yourself but others see when they look at you.  I'm looking forward to book 3 Seeress which comes out today…well it was listed to come out today but it was posted on Amazon last night so I have it down loaded and I will start it on my lunch hour today.

Rating:  5 Magic Portals

                Let me know what you think below in the comments please for both my review as a whole, the book/series itself, etc.  Next I did see a movie this weekend and I will be posting my review on that shortly and I was also granted another great opportunity to host an author interview.  I'm excited and it is scheduled for next Sunday May 4th, it will be Colette Ballard for her paperback release of Running on Empty.  I'm stoked for this and I'm even thinking of hosting my very first giveaway, so check back and share your thoughts as always.