*** This review does contain spoilers so please read at your own risk ***This is the second witch series where I had the uncontrollable urge to root for the bad guys.I warily started reading Altered Souls after just completing Lonely Souls (Book 1). I didn’t care for the first book I was curious about where the story might go in book 2 so I decided to give it a try.I actually found the writing to be better in Altered Souls and I thought that this book would be an improvement over Lonely Souls. Though, grammar-wise, the author chose not to use dialog tags at times and made it difficult to figure out who was speaking – especially when one person would be talking and the author would start each new sentence on a different line. Each of these new sentences also had their own beginning quotation marks that added to the confusion.But, as I said, the writing was definitely better. I was even considering giving the book at least three stars. To begin with, Triss found a way for me to dislike her immediately in the beginning of the novel. There was not much she did to fix that and I detested her all the way from beginning to end. It’s sad when you’re rooting for the bad guys to kill off the main character at every chance but that’s what I did. The book opens up with Triss working on a black magic spell (which she tries really hard to convince both her and Logan that it’s not “really” black magic if you want to learn the truth). Then, she carelessly shrugs off the fate of a spider, like she doesn’t care about them and has no special connection to nature. In Lonely Souls, she sang the praises of spiders, saying how they killed all the other insects that she didn’t like. A little two-faced there, I thought. Throughout the novel, she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted without considering the consequences. Even Logan tried to give her advice, which she refused to take. Now, I can hate a character and still like a book. I knew that there were other interesting characters in the previous novel and I wanted to see if they would make and appearance or brighten up the story so I kept reading. That was until I got up to around 40-45% of the novel. That’s when the entire novel took a deep nosedive that made it harder for it to recover.Even though I started off the book not liking Triss, I didn’t automatically dislike Logan. I did notice a change in Logan and he appeared to be an angrier character in this book and I must point out that whatever interest I had in Logan automatically disappeared at the beginning of chapter 13. Logan claims that he’s a good person and that he does not want to side with evil. And yet, when Triss and Logan came across a boy named Preston, a boy Logan has never met before, Logan sucker punches the boy in the stomach. -- Logan let go of my hand and pushed the guy to get his attention. -- “What’s up, man?” The guy asked, spinning around. -- “Interested in what you’ve got going on,” Logan spoke very quietly. -- “How so?” The stranger replied coolly. -- “I think you know,” Logan snarled as his fist landed deep in the guy’s gut. -- A gust of air escaped before he doubled over from Logan’s fury.Then, to cover up his abuse on a stranger, Logan props up the guy to make it look like he got ill from watching the events. Logan directs Triss to bring the car around (she does happily – “Watching Logan in action did something to me I didn’t expect. It was a like a magnet pulling me to him. Seeing his grave expression mix with his apparent strength was hard not to admire.”). Then, he drags the boy over to his car and essentially kidnaps him – all to find out what the boy knows about Triss’s father. And, Triss is completely fine with all of this. Then, when Logan gets all the information he wants out of Preston, the following exchange happened:-- “You can get out now,” Logan said to Preston. -- We both heard a grunt as he got out of the car.-- “You did a number on him,” I whispered. ( again with the whispering! They are the only two people in the car!!)-- Logan smiled as we both watched him trundle off in the direction of the lake.Now where is the good in that scene? Why would it be okay for Logan to punch strangers, kidnap them and then smile at what he had just done like he enjoyed it? This may be fiction but there are words to describe people like this: they are the bad guys. After that, it was hard to see him as a person on the side of good and it made me second guess every move he made and every word he uttered.This book seemed to have more instances of Triss and Logan “whispering” to each other when just using regular voices would suffice. I let my Kindle do the counting for me and it came up with 160 results for any version of “whisper”. I don’t have real page numbers this time but Amazon states that the book has 310 pages. That averages to a little more than a “whisper” on every other page. I honestly do not believe that people really speak to each other this way. I certainly don’t and no one I have ever encountered does this. Other than distracting the reader, I’m not exactly sure what the author was trying for. Oh, and Triss seems to change facts that have already happened in the story. During her ten second dream in Logan’s mini-house, she saw Ellsy shackled to a stone wall where she learned some horrible information. Ellsy’s last words in the dream were, “You better not touch my son, Nicholas.” A few percentages later (38%), Triss tells Logan that Ellsy was begging for Logan’s life. Nope. I didn’t read about Ellsy begging – I read Ellsy’s threatening words. Is Triss trying to stir up more trouble by distorting the facts or did the author forget to change one of the scenes to match the other? Begging and threatening are two very different types of words and invoke two very different types of reactions. And what is this whole deal about Triss having a pure heart? I don’t know where the author is going with this one but Triss is right to deny Logan’s idea. She keeps proving that her heart is not pure and both Triss and I can give several examples of this (she loves the power that the dark magic gives her, she wants to kill several people – Trevor, her father, she tries to make excuses for using black magic and she killed a person in Lonely Souls (not exactly sure if the being with red eyes was really human or not). On pages 286-287 of Lonely Souls, Triss sat high in the tree and waited until he was beneath her. He did not know that she was even up in the tree or that she was planning on killing him – “… the silence of the kill was what was necessary. I was no longer the prey, I was the predator.” Logan called this self-defense but it’s only self-defense if the person actually tries to attack you, not when he is being hunted and killed without being able to confront his attacker (who is Triss, in this case). Now, if she jumped out of the tree and engaged in a real, confrontational fight with this person, then yes, her killing him could be called self-dense. I also found that deux ex machina was way too apparent in this novel. Triss never really had to fight to solve her problems and most of the solutions were just handed to her on a silver platter. This happened at many times throughout the novel (more than in Lonely Souls).Example: Trevor has been the supposed big threat to Triss and Logan’s romance since the beginning of the book. Triss hates him, Logan hates him, they want to hurt him, Triss wants to kill him, etc. Then, when is fighting with her grandfather and she becomes trapped with nowhere to go, she passes out. When she wakes up, who is the one who saved her? Trevor. Who suddenly switched to the good side right in the nick of time to help Triss and Logan fight the bad people? Trevor. I just sat there in amazement (not the good kind). Once again, Triss is miraculously saved and oh look, her enemy has suddenly turned good and can amazingly fight off an evil witch with no problem. I would also like to know how Triss suddenly became knowledgeable at spell casting. She would point her want and automatically start spouting off spells like she had been casting them her entire life. The only practice that I knew of was when Logan taught her a few spells and when she read the family book that was hidden in the cottage. The author never stated that Triss had an eidetic memory so I find her ability to start whipping out useful spells, in a different language (that she does not fully understand) at the exact time that she needs them to be highly unbelievable. Now, if she had training for this, along with Latin instruction, then yes, I could believe this. It doesn’t matter if it’s fiction or not, you can’t make a character be able to do something like this and have the reader accept it willingly. Something else that bothered me: if the grandfather and the father were so badass, why were Triss, Logan and Trevor able to perform such simple spells that had such a great impact? Why didn’t the grandfather and the father try to eliminate them, freeze them or do something powerful to stop them? If the author wanted me to believe that Eben and Nicholas were so bad, she should have proved it. If the author wanted me to believe that Triss, Logan andt Trevor were really fighting for their lives (which they really weren’t), then don’t perform a simple spell that just anyone can do.The scene towards the end with Triss waiting for her father to make his move so she could attack him was plain ridiculous. She called in the birds and he make a spell do have it rain. For real?? The big bad man makes it rain? THAT’S what he chose to use as an effective weapon? And then Logan freezes him without using the word ‘temporary.” Now, if Logan knows this spell (and Logan trained under the father), why couldn’t the father just FREEZE all three of them? I find it very hard to believe that the father would just make it rain. That’s a very poor fight scene and a big let down – along with the girl licking her lips at the end. Triss must have had been given psychic powers to figure that one out because nothing in that little exchange led me to the same conclusion as her.The idea of gray magic just seemed like a cop out. It was like the author was giving Triss an excuse for performing black magic and making it okay. Now, I don’t have a problem with “gray magic” but with Triss and Logan’s history with magic and Triss always trying to find an excuse for performing bad spells on unwilling people, gray magic should not be an “out” for her. There should be repercussions for her magical actions.I found the love connection between Triss and Logan to be ridiculous in Lonely Souls and it just increased in this book. I found it odd that Logan often tried to distract Triss from her game of 20,000 questions by trying to seduce her (not through sex but through touches, kisses and the fact that Triss was enamored with just about any movement he made). Quite often, Logan wouldn’t answer Triss’s questions, he would just grab her, kiss her, touch her and she would just melt into his arms like the little lust bunny she was. I didn’t see or feel the love between the two of them.I’m giving this book 1.5 stars because I thought the writing was better but overall, I didn’t think that this was a terrific book. Title: Altered Souls (The Witch Avenue #2)Author: Karice BoltonDate of Release: October 28th, 2012 Number of Pages: 312Source: Author for ATOMR tour review.Summary from Goodreads:The realm of Altered Souls brings nothing but unrest, deceit, and pain forcing Triss to come face to face with heartbreak from her past. Facing a betrayal like never before, Triss questions everything she thought she knew about her family, coven, and abilities. With the help of Logan, she embarks on a journey enabling her to confront the dark side of magic and the person who controls it. Realizing Triss’s ancestors have been seduced for centuries by the dark side, Triss and Logan must ensure no more in their world fall victim to the realm of Altered Souls, even if that means ending the ones they love.Review: Hands down, this book was terrific. I wasn’t even half way in and I had fallen back into the story. I liked how at times the mood felt playful and other moments completely terrifying. Being a second novel the book never had those boring paybacks that I usually just skim through. I’ll admit that, I have a short attention span. I liked how the previous key events were placed in so if you had forgotten or needed a playback it was there, but it was done in a way that didn’t feel like recapping. Altered Souls is Karice Bolton at her best. Triss kind of felt psychotic in the beginning and I was questioning her sanity. I really liked that. The balancing of white and dark magic was hard for her and book two was all about finding that grey line. The building of her magic skills was done in a way where it didn’t feel too rapid just natural. Logan, I want to marry. Too bad he’s taken ;) We get to explore his whole dark past and origins. I was absolutely captivated. Maybe there are decent guys like him in the world. Anyways!! The relationship between Triss and Logan builds and crescendos into this BRILLIANT final result that the last ¼ of the book dealt with. It didn’t overwhelm the main plot it was a second string to that which everything was based on. The layering worked perfectly. At times things felt like it was moving too fast. At the same time, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted more slow it down moments, but I also wanted the wicked fight scenes. What I was given satisfied me until I turned the last page and there was nothing left! I will definitely be reading book three. Make sure you check out book one Lonely Souls!
What do You think about Altered Souls (2012)?
Excellent! I couldnt put this book down. So much mystery. Looking forward to book 3.
—ginger1208
Brilliant :-) Can't wait for the next one!!
—sewfeeyah
