Release date: 2012
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal/Fantasy
Source: Bought off Amazon
Rating: 5 Bookworms
Synopsis:
"I need to get you to the hospital." He was taking responsibility for me. Only my parents had that job. I stretched my hand out in protest, but the lack of depth perception had my trembling fingers grazing his overheated neck. I swore his whole body shook.
When five-year-old Anna Pierce is offered a chance to have nightmare-free nights for the small price of her voice, she jumps at it. Silence has to be better than all-consuming dreams about blood and death and fangy monsters. The bargain she strikes comes with a secondary benefit, visions of a person's future potential. The combination of visions and silence changes her very nature and soon she's diagnosed with autism. Twelve years of living in her head comes to a screeching halt the moment Peter Davis pulls her out of an icy river.
Her new life has her twirling, tiptoeing, and crashing through unfamiliar territory, one filled with a cranky grandma, a knocked up cousin, an unpleasant cousin, a bunch of mostly good vampires, and the boy who rescued her.
To top it all off, the deal she made at five is no more. Anna is expected to talk, to figure out her resurfacing nightmares, and to control her ever-growing powers. And she'd better get it done soon because if the good vamps want a piece of a living, breathing Touched girl, the evil ones simply want. They'll take Anna for their very own.
***Sky's Review***
My mom has been raving about Robyn’s books since the first time she read them, which was before she and Robyn became best friends. I’ve been looking forward to reading her books for a long time because I know how great a storyteller Robyn is!
Soul Walker did not disappoint me. In particular, I loved the beautiful development of characters, and I especially loved Anna. I can relate a lot to the way Robyn described her thoughts and emotions as a kaleidoscope; I thought that the vivid visualization of these intangible elements was gorgeous. I can also relate to Anna’s overly trusting nature -- this was a flaw of hers but I kept forgetting that it was one. Generally, Anna is a wonderful character. I love her quirks and her bubbly personality.
It was a lot of fun to watch Anna enter the world and discover her place in it. That spoke to me, since this is the journey that I will undertake very soon. And although the vampire fad is long gone, I liked the very different approach to it that this book takes. I thought that it was very creative and it’s refreshing to read something so different.
Robyn does an amazing job of painting the world through Anna’s eyes. We don’t just see the maple tree -- we see that big, beautiful maple tree with the purple leaves and all of the connotations it has for Anna. I love it when a book takes me not only to a different place, but also turns me into a different person. Robyn does this from page one; when I was in the early stages of the book, I kept forgetting that I could speak, and as I kept reading, my thoughts started running in the voice of Anna (Robyn?) Her style of speaking is incredibly distinctive and infectious.
Really, the only critique I have is the relative abundance of comma splices. I know that they indicate a more informal style of writing, but four years of editing high schoolers’ work is hard for me to shake (high schoolers are notorious for having a horrible problem with comma splices, according to my teachers.) It bothers me mostly because each type of punctuation takes a separate amount of pause in my head, like musical rests, so comma splices just don’t sound right. Most people probably aren’t quite as neurotic as me, so it’s not really an issue.
Robyn’s writing is truly something magical. Her characters are colorful and full of life and her story is creative and comfortable. I look forward to reading more!
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