NetGalley Review: Soulgazer by Maggie Rapier
Hey all, Sam here.
Today I’d like to wish a very happy book birthday to Soulgazer by Maggie Rapier. This is the first book in the Wolf and Magpie duology. I was lucky enough to be offered a digital copy through NetGalley, and I gladly accepted because the book sounded interesting. As always, I will continue to say that any book I request or accept on NetGalley is a book that I would pick up and read on my own anyway…so getting this early copy doesn’t actually affect my rating or review in any way.
Thank you to Ace/Berkley/Penguin Publishing Houses for letting me join in on the book release social media blitz.
All right, let’s jump into the review already.
My Thoughts
Every legend has a beginning.
With their freedom on the line, a young woman and a rakish pirate take their fate into their own hands as they attempt to find a lost mythical isle with the power to save their entire world.
Saoirse yearns to be powerless. Cursed from childhood with a volatile magic, she’s managed to imprison it within, living under constant terror that one day it will break free. And it does, changing everything.
Horrified at her loss of control, Saoirse’s parents offer her hand to the cold and ruthless Stone King. Knowing she’ll never survive such a cruel man, Saoirse realizes there is only one path forward…she must break her curse.
On the eve of her wedding, Saoirse seeks out the legendary Wolf of the Wild—Faolan, a feral, silver-tongued pirate. He swears to help rid her of the deadly magic, if she’ll use it to locate a lost mythical isle first. Crafted by the slaughtered gods, it’s the only land that could absorb her power.
But Saoirse knows better than to trust a pirate’s word. With the wrath of her disgraced father and scorned betrothed chasing them, Saoirse adds one last condition to protect if Faolan wants her on his ship, he’ll have to marry her first.
Rating: 4 stars
There are definitely elements of this book that are inspired by Ireland and the myths of Ireland. A lot of the names and titles and all of that are pretty much pulled straight from Irish history, and I’m not complaining. I love stories inspired by the myths and folklore of Ireland and Scotland.
I was also intrigued by the idea of volatile magic, though the synopsis doesn’t give any other clues about what kind of magic it is. I’ll be honest, this is part of what brought my rating down a bit. It took so long to start to get an understanding of Saoirse’s magic, because it took Saoirse until probably the mid-point of the book before she started trying to understand the magic more instead of being afraid of it and thinking of it as a curse.
Yes, I understand that if you’ve been told your whole life that something is bad and wrong and a curse, you definitely hold onto that mentality, even after being told by others and even learning that it might not be as bad as you’ve been trained to believe. But it was still just a long frustrating build.
Speaking of a long build, it took quite a while before Saoirse and Faolan allowed themselves to really start getting physical with each other. Oh man, the tension of that build up…because it was pretty clear that they were interested in each other from the beginning.
This definitely has a Romance build up, but I felt like I could have used a bit more on the Fantasy side of things before starting to call this a Romantasy. I wanted to know more about the world and the culture and the history and the magic….basically I’m a fantasy reader who wants all the Worldbuilding and such. And since the romance aspect was a slow build up, I think there was time in the beginning to really expand the reader’s knowledge of the world.
But, maybe that’s just me. I know some Romance and Romantasy readers will be just fine with what is established in this story and world so far. Me? I’m hoping we’ll get a little more info in the second book of the duology.
I read this book pretty quickly, only taking two reading sessions (although one reading session was while I was at work so there were multiple brief interruptions to do actual work-related duties).
Also, let’s just give a shout out to that cover, because Saoirse is staring straight into the reader/viewer’s soul, which is very fitting considering her magic and the book’s title.
Overall, I had an enjoyable time reading this, and I am looking forward to seeing how complicated everything gets in the conclusion novel.
All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content. I’m going to go get ready for tonight’s D&D session now.
