Sixteen year old Kaylee Cavanaugh lives with her aunt and uncle and annoyingly perfect cousin Sophie. Her dad has been absent and in Ireland for most of her life, and she knows there's something wrong with her. See, when someone is about to die, Kaylee sees them covered in shadows and a scream starts to build in her throat and nothing, nothing except distancing herself from that person can make the scream stop if she opens her mouth. And she can't warn the person about their impending death - sure, they might think she was crazy, but it'd beat feeling like she was letting people die without doing anything - but if she opens her mouth, she can't say anything just scream.

Nash Hudson, the hot guy at school known for being a player, suddenly shows an interest in her, and doesn't freak out about the whole knowing someone's going to die thing, and he seems to know way more about what's wrong with her than he should. But the worst of it is that three girls have dropped dead for no apparent reason and with no warning in three days, and Kaylee needs to find out why.

My Soul to Take is Rachel Vincent's first foray into the Young Adult market, and she's done an awesome job. I like the Soul Screamers Series (this is book 1) even better than her adult urban fantasy series (Stray). Kaylee is a likable character who is normal - except for the screaming thing of course - but she handles everything that's thrown at her with a lot of maturity for someone who's sixteen. Nash is also likable and funny, and it's easy to see why Kaylee is drawn to him and vice versa.

The plot is fast moving, and though it's not too complicated, it's also got a few surprises and interesting twists. The minor characters have unique personalities and quirks, especially Tod the friendly hospital reaper. And Rachel Vincent has taken a new route within the YA paranormal romance genre. Out of all the signed books I got at BEA, this is one of the ones I'm happiest with (and Rachel Vincent was so sweet when she signed my book - she wrote "May the banshee never wail...").

I’d heard this was a good book, but didn’t expect it to make me cry. Too personal to share why here, but it just goes to show that the most powerful fiction is that which strongly resembles real life. However, once 100 pages had gone and the story became more paranormal, I was fine. I could distance myself from it, and should be able to read the following novels in the series tear-free.

The twists and turns are intriguing, and form an engrossing read. A truly outstanding novel, it’ll be a hard act to follow but one to watch, come

My Soul to Save

’s release in January 2010.

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