Fractured Souls by Ava Marie Salinger

Narrated by Alex Kydd

Fractured Souls is the first book in Ava Marie Salinger’s Fallen Messengers urban fantasy series in which angels and demons fell to Earth some five hundred years ago. The world the author has created is fascinating, the worldbuilding is really good, and the plot is fast-paced and action packed, but the storytelling is hampered by the introduction of too many characters at once (making it hard to keep track of who is who and who they all work for), and the romance is underdeveloped.

Like all the Fallen, Cassius Black, the most feared angel of them all, has no idea of who he was before. For years, he’s been doing his best to live under the radar and avoid interaction with the various magical and supernatural organisations that have been nothing but trouble for him in the past. Recently re-located from London to San Francisco, Cassius has taken on the job of looking for a missing cat and finds much more than he bargained for when he stumbles across said cat – a demon cat – down in the sewers, hiding from a huge Lucifugous demon that’s snacking on some human remains. After dispatching the demon, Cassius is able to see the disturbing signs of some sort of black magic ritual involving the dead man – clearly the Lucifugous didn’t kill the human. But if he didn’t – who did?

In the early hours of the morning, Cassius is rudely awakened – again – by the loud sex noises coming through the bedroom wall he shares with the apartment next door. Whoever lives there seems insatiable – he brings home a different man or woman every night and they go at it several times a night; Cassius hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in the two weeks since he moved in. Completely fed up, he’s making some coffee when his apartment door is busted open and a group of Argonaut (law enforcement for the Fallen and the magical) agents enters intent on arresting him for murder. In the midst of the chaos, Cassius is surprised to see his neighbour entering, and even more surprised when he addresses the agents as though he knows them.

Well. Damn.

Cassius learns that his noisy neighbour is Morgan King and that he and his team at the agency have been investigating a series of ritualistic killings which have targeted humans. Morgan’s boss – who knows Cassius and has worked with him before (much to the surprise of his agents) asks Cassius for his help, but he isn’t interested. For years, the four organisations that govern the supernatural world have used his particular skills when they needed them and then washed their hands of him once they were done, and he wants nothing to do with any of them. But someone is stealing and fracturing human souls, souls which can be used to open a doorway between worlds, which points to whoever is behind it wanting to open the Nether and unleash chaos upon Earth. When the owner of the demon cat – whom he’s named Loki – is brutally murdered, Cassius realises he can’t just stand aside and allow more innocents to die. He agrees to work with Argonaut – just this one time.

There’s a lot to enjoy about this story – the premise is interesting and Cassius is a fascinating character. He’s been ostracised, feared and hated by his own kind for centuries simply because he’s regarded as being too powerful. He’s badass yet vulnerable, too; he’s led a very lonely existence for the most part, and it’s kinda cute but also a bit sad when doesn’t quite know what to make of it when Morgan’s team accepts him and makes clear that they’ll have his back in exactly the same way they have one another’s. Morgan, on the other hand, is somewhat two-dimensional; he’s a bit of a dickhead to start with, and I found him hard to warm to until quite a way into the book.

The world-building is particularly good, from the invention of four agencies that govern the supernatural world, to the way magic works for different beings and the types of weapons they can use. I like the idea of a found-family/work team who look out for each other without question, but the problem here is that so many are introduced at once, it’s hard to keep track. When Cassius arrives at Argonaut HQ, he meets the other members of Morgan’s team (there are… five of them?) and we’re immediately told what they look like and what they are (sorcerer, enchanter, witch, aqueous demon etc.). Then there’s a discussion that introduces the other agencies – Cabalista, Hexa, The Order of Rosen – it’s kind of info-dumpy, and a lot to take in. From reading reviews of the book, it seems that there’s a glossary at the front, but that’s not present in the audio version – even if it was, it would be impractical, unless it was provided as a pdf. And even if it was supplied, being able to cross-check until you get used to remembering doesn’t negate the fact that the audience is bombarded with way too much information in one go, and the introduction of the characters doesn’t feel organic.

Speaking of not feeling organic brings me to the romance. I hadn’t realised, when I requested this title for review, that the romance is of the ‘fated mates’ variety; it’s not a trope I’m fond of. In this story, Cassius and Morgan know instantly that there’s some kind of connection between them – although at this stage they have no idea what it is. This is an on-going series featuring the same central couple, so there is obviously room for things to develop, but in this book, it’s pretty superficial; they have lots of sex, but I don’t really know what they see in each other other than ‘he’s hot’ and this mysterious connection. I am intrigued by that, however, and I presume that as the story arc progresses, they will find out exactly what binds them to each other, but I can only judge what I’ve listened to so far, which was all tell and no show.

That brings me to something else that really bothered me. The writing in the sex scenes is… off. We get things like this – “his tongue lashing eagerly against Morgan’s as he frenched him” (Frenching? Seriously?!) and – “He anchored himself to Morgan and rolled his hips sexily, mimicking the act of lovemaking.” The act of lovemaking? Have we wandered into a Victorian romance? And I could really have done without the mention of “back passages” spasming or pulsing or “quivering with ripples of intense pleasure”. I know this author writes contemporary m/f romance under another name and as far as I can tell this is her first foray into m/m. Um. I’ll just leave that here.

The performance by new-to-me narrator Alex Kydd is a bit of a mixed bag. He has a soothing, baritone-range voice and his character voices and pacing are fine (maybe he’s a bit on the slow side at times), but although he does manage a good number of character voices and differentiates well between them all, I couldn’t always tell who was speaking simply because there are SO MANY characters that I just couldn’t remember which voice went with who. That’s not Mr. Kydd’s fault – had there been fewer characters or had they been introduced in smaller groups, I might have been able to spend enough time with them to be able to recognise them by ear. That did happen later with some of them, but it took a while. There are two constant mispronunciations that really bugged me – he pronounces “Cassius” as “Cash-us” and “Adrianne” as “Adrian” – I kept expecting to hear a male character when Adrianne was mentioned. The two leads are easily identifiable though, and he does a good job of relaying Cassius’ snark and of letting his vulnerability show. Overall, however, his performance is a bit too low key; he’s expressive enough in the dialogue, but in the narrative parts he’s much less animated, and the action scenes sound as though he’s just describing a walk in the park. It’s not a bad performance – it just lacks tension and needs some “oomph” as we say over here.

Fractured Souls has a lot going for it and I might continue with the series, but I’m not sure whether that will be in print or audio. The narration is by no means bad, but other narrators have set the bar so high in this kind of material, that it’s hard to be completely satisfied with anything that doesn’t quite meet the same high standard.

Caz

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