Lost Souls by Chelsea Mueller
Soul Charmer #3
Urban Fantasy
February 25, 2019 Self Published

Get out of Hell free card? Not for Callie Delgado, Gem City’s newest soul charmer. Sin and salvation collide in this gritty and action-packed urban fantasy.

Callie’s magic is finally her own. She and Derek dispatched Ford. They should have been able to breathe, but layers of sin run deep beneath Gem City. Another mob boss quickly rises, and his sights are firmly set on Callie—and her family.

Mobile soul rental shops begin to bite at the Soul Charmer’s business. His retribution is wicked, but the blowback threatens to crush Callie. If she can’t maintain the tenuous balance of souls in Gem City, more lives will be lost.

Only the more magic she uses, the more danger finds her. A break-in, pools of blood, and bare shelves at the Soul Charmer’s store force Callie to choose the fates of others. But which can she live with? Losing her city, her love, her family …or her very soul?

Callie Delgado has had a rough couple of months. She’s gone from a frightened woman out to save her brother from Gem City’s scariest drug dealer to working for the Soul Charmer and trying to get a handle on her newfound abilities.

Lost Souls is the third book in Chelsea Mueller’s Soul Charmer series, a dark, gritty urban fantasy where rented souls are used when someone wants to do bad things and wants to negate the damage done to their own souls. Callie Delgado is our heroine and she’s gone through quite a transformation. She’s gone from a frightened woman working as a cook in a nursing home out to save her brother from Gem City’s scariest drug dealer to working for the Soul Charmer and trying to get a handle on her newfound abilities. Her lover, the Soul Charmer’s enforcer Derek, remains her only real ally.

At the end of the previous installment one of Callie’s enemies sends her a message and the chopped off fingers of someone close to her. Which means she’s desperate to figure out a way to get her loved one back. When Lost Souls opens she’s working her contacts around town, trying every angle she knows to get information on Nate’s whereabouts. All she wants is to give him back the soul she took from him and get Zara back.

But things can always get worse. Right in the middle of Callie’s family crisis, the Soul Charmer goes missing and none of his employees have any idea what might have happened or how to find him. All they know are some of the darkest souls in the store have gone missing and a new soul rental business has popped up out of nowhere. As the only one with real soul magic, Callie is the logical choice to step in and take the lead. And she so does.

I really enjoy this world. It has this grittiness to it that I like in my urban fantasy. Callie continues to evolve and grow as a character and seems to be truly embracing her magic. The once skittish, worried young woman willing to do anything to save her brother, has kind of morphed into a powerful, more confident person who uses her instincts make decisions in tough situations and isn’t so worried about which side of the those decisions fall on.

Of course she has Derek as her muscle and a strong shoulder to lean on when she needs it. I love his character and I love that this author hasn’t played around and tugged on her readers heartstrings about whether they will or won’t be a couple. There is plenty of angst and conflict outside their relationship thank you very much, no need to throw in more.

I like where Callie is headed. I feel like her step into the Soul Charmer’s shoes foretells the future of the series. I only wish she would set some more boundaries with her brother and mother. They treat her like shit and she lets them. I get that the motto she lives by is “family first”, but I hate how they talk to her.

All in all, this was another satisfying addition in this series. I’m looking forward to what comes next.

Final Grade- B

Favorite Quote:

“Where you go, I go. That’s the deal, doll.”

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