Book Review- The Weight of Souls by Bryony Pearce

Title: The Weight of Souls

 Author: Bryony Pearce

Series:  The Weight of Souls #1

Published:  6 August 2013 by Strange Chemistry

Length: 350 pages

Warnings: N/A

Source: netgalley

Other info: Bryony wrote for me A Ghost By Any Other Name. She has also written Angel’s Fury.

Summary : Sixteen year old Taylor Oh is cursed: if she is touched by the ghost of a murder victim then they pass a mark beneath her skin. She has three weeks to find their murderer and pass the mark to them – letting justice take place and sending them into the Darkness. And if she doesn’t make it in time? The Darkness will come for her…
She spends her life trying to avoid ghosts, make it through school where she’s bullied by popular Justin and his cronies, keep her one remaining friend, and persuade her father that this is real and that she’s not going crazy.
But then Justin is murdered and everything gets a whole lot worse. Justin doesn’t know who killed him, so there’s no obvious person for Taylor to go after. The clues she has lead her to the V Club, a vicious secret society at her school where no one is allowed to leave… and where Justin was dared to do the stunt which led to his death.
Can she find out who was responsible for his murder before the Darkness comes for her? Can she put aside her hatred for her former bully to truly help him?
And what happens if she starts to fall for him?

Review: Taylor Oh sees the dead. As  a result of the agreement that one of her ancestors made with Anubis, she and her family must, if they see a ghost of a murder victim who marks them,  they must transfer the mark to the murderer as soon as possible. Because the Darkness will come for whoever carries the mark, and no one knows what happens  to them then. Taylor has been doing this for five years now. It’s been okish up until now, but then Justin Hargreaves, Taylor’s source of torment, dies and comes back as a ghost. But he doesn’t know who is responsible for his death, and Bryony must discover some of the school’s dark secrets before the darkness comes for her.

I was a little interested in this when I heard about the concept. Then the cover came and the MC is Chinese, which makes me really happy. Then I got the guest post about how these ghosts are different, and I thought: yes, I’m reading this one.

It starts quickly, showing Taylor’s normal job. And the dynamics between her, her friend Hannah AND THE POPULAR GROUP OF Justin, Pete, James, Tamsin and Harley within the first few  chapters. Justin dies about a fifth of the way in, a good pace. The pacing works.

I really liked Taylor. She’s been dealing with the ghosts since she was ten, and as well as having to cope with them. She has to deal with  dissolving friendships and trying to get in with the crowd she hated to find the killers. Justin, likability levels vary as the novel progresses, but by the end, you’ve seen who he really is. I really liked Taylor’s dad, who’s determined to find a way to defeat the curse, and is really supportive of Taylor.

The writing is great especially in places of tension and once Taylor’s picked up on the actual lead. The scene with the wheel and the scene at the tube station are two standout scenes that kept me gripped. The unmasking scene is not what I expected and what follows is definitely unique.

The ending is  really clever, links well to the clues scattered throughout, and leaves room for a sequel. A sequel I can’t wait for.

Overall:  Strength 4 tea to a superbly written novel.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

Guest Post- A Ghost by Any Other Name by Bryony Pearce

Hey guys! Today, we have Bryony Pearce ,author of The Weight of Souls, to talk about how she made her ghosts different.

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I have spoken elsewhere about how heavily influenced I am by Stephen King (also Macaffrey and Gemmell). King’s ghosts however, are generally evil (think the Overlook hotel), mine are not.

One of themes that runs through my work is ‘man as monster’. My last book, Angel’s Fury, opens with a Nazi murder and deals with the darkness inside the human spirit, the terrible things that man has done to man. In it we look askance at serial killers and Nazis, soldiers, terrorists and more.

The Weight of Souls has at its core a murder mystery, another terrible action that man has done to man. The monsters in The Weight of Souls are not the ghosts; the ghosts are the victims of the monsters.

That does not stop me from making some of them as creepy as possible.

When I first conceived of writing a story about a girl who sees ghosts, I was concerned that it had ‘been done’. Who hasn’t heard “I see dead people.’?

So I had to think of ways to make my story new.
My first change was to make sure that Taylor did not simply see ghosts, she sees murder victims whose deaths have gone unpunished. If one of these ghosts touches her, Taylor is compelled to seek their justice.
Although I knew from that point that I would be writing a murder mystery, I did not want to make Taylor a Nancy Drew character, after all I thought, where is the realism in a teenaged girl solving crimes that the police cannot? And how would she punish the murderers? Make them do her maths homework …

So I gave the ghosts a power. If they are able to touch someone who has Taylor’s power (or curse), they confer upon their skin a black Mark. This Mark (which deserves the capitalisation) calls something named The Darkness to come and take the bearer away for justice.
Obviously Taylor’s job, if she is wearing a Mark, is to find the individual who truly deserves to be bearing it, and transfer it across. Then she can stand back while the Darkness takes them away.

Usually Taylor’s job is easy. The ghosts tell her who killed them. She simply has to locate the killer, touch them and walk away.
The meat of The Weight of Souls lies in the death of one of her schoolmates, a boy Taylor does not even like. Justin is murdered, but he died in such a way that he believes it was an accident. He does not know who his killer is. But his touch has transferred a Mark to Taylor. She has to find his killer before the Darkness comes for her.
There are rules too, to my ghosts and how they can interact with the human world, best explained by Taylor herself …
“I’m not sure how it works exactly. I know you can’t touch anything living, attached to a living thing, or that a living thing is touching directly. … You can sit on your seat, but you can’t touch mine while I’m sitting here. You can’t affect the living in any way. Mum thought it was something to do with resonances. I don’t know.”
“So I could pick up a knife, but not stab someone with it.”
“You don’t have any substance, Hargreaves. You can feel yourself touch things, even knock things over. But you can’t pick anything up; people would notice stuff floating around.”
He frowned. “Okay. You’re touching this bus. Shouldn’t I fall through the floor?”
“Everyone on the bus is wearing shoes, Hargreaves. No-one is touching the floor directly. You won’t fall through it.”

In fact Taylor uses these rules to escape the ghosts who haunt her.

A whoop whistled out of me and I hurled myself towards the road. As the bus passed, I reached for the pole, leaped and swung myself on board.
Immediately I turned. The dead girl was only two steps behind. Quickly I lifted my hand out of her reach, but kept contact with the metal pole. She grinned and reached out, already jumping towards me.
As her hand went straight through the metal her eyes widened. So, she was new enough not to have known about that. Or maybe she was just stupid.
She hit the floor with her chest, her feet dragged on the road and she scrabbled desperately, trying to get the rest of her body onto the bus.
I crouched just out of her reach and looked at her in silence.
“Please,” she begged. “I know you can help me.” She stretched out her hand, as though I’d take it.
I watched her without moving until she lost her grip.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to write a love story, that my human girl would fall in love with my ghostly boy. But I have also wanted for a long time to write about an incubus. With the Weight of Souls I was able to do both.
When Taylor and Justin fall in love and have their first kiss, Taylor is weakened and Justin is suddenly able to change the rules; he can touch things that Taylor is touching and his old girlfriend can see him. It becomes gradually clearer that through the intimacy of their kisses Justin is taking her life force.

Sadly this is not a recipe for a healthy relationship; the living and the dead are not mean for romance.
This is clearly a doomed love.
Or is it?

To find out more about Bryony and her writing, please visit her website www.bryonypearce.co.uk, follow her on Twitter @BryonyPearce or like her facebook page BryonyPearceAuthor.
The Weight of Souls can be foudn on Goodreads and on Amazon.

These ghosts sound cool, right? If you can't wait, or you need a little more convincing, you can read an extract of The Weight of Souls here. Thanks for the post, Bryony!

Finally, you NEED to go visit the rest of the sites on the tour! Big giveaway! More info at Bryony's website :)