Opal ReyneRomantasy · Romance
A Soul to Heal
Synopsis
Delora has been exiled into the Veil as punishment for a crime. The world she came from has no further use for her, and she expects the demons there to devour her.
She lands instead on a young Duskwalker, a faceless monster with no name. He has longed for a companion, a Bride of his own, and he pulls her out of danger.
Delora offers him her soul before his hunger and rage can overtake him. She believes the bargain means her death. He has other plans: he intends to make her a home where she could be content, and he starts trying to mend what is broken in her.
His magic proves unable to mend some of what she carries. As the two work at building a connection, he learns about her and about himself, and Delora slowly starts to find a reason to stay.
The book is the second in the Duskwalker Brides series, a spicy monster romance whose tone differs from the first book, so it can be read as its own story. The open question is whether a woman who walked in expecting to die can come to want a life with the creature who saved her.
How it reads
Prose complexity 4/10
Content warnings (3)
AbuseViolenceSexual Content
- I loved A Soul To Keep, and I wanted to continue the series so badly, but something told me that I wasn’t going to like this one that much and I was right. I’m glad I read it because there’s a lot more information about the Mavka but it wasn’t for me.<br><br><i> Spoilers below this point. </i><br><br>This is just a me thing, but I think I enjoyed Orpheus personality much more than Magnar’s, I know that he was undeveloped, and I liked that we got to see different stages of development on the mavkas in these two books, but he’s not my favorite character, very sweet, naive and innocent but just not my type. And our female protagonist is Delora, I couldn’t like her. She was selfish, I couldn’t feel bad for her and her sad past and how she was thrown in the veil. Magnar had difficulties with understanding things and had blanks in his thoughts, but she didn’t, a lot of the solutions to the problems that the couple faces could be found if she would’ve just asked Reia and at some point, Delora was taking advantage of the fact that Magnar had a low understanding of some things.<br><br>I liked that the author explores different characters and plots, so that the second book doesn’t become a copy of the first one, but the execution was very weird and it made me feel uncomfortable, especially when Fyodor is introduced (btw I loved the baby mavka, there’s a lot of creativity on how they look, grow and develop, it was very funny how they just cling to their parents.)<br><br>They were clearly not ready to have a kid, and again, Magnar doesn’t understand a lot, but Delora does, the negligence that the poor kid has to face made me feel really bad, it doesn’t matter if the excuse is that Fyodor is almost indestructible and painless, they never think of food until Reia and Orpheus bring food to the baby, they never make a safe space for them to explore and grow, they don’t pay attention to them and constantly loses them, Fyodor almost dies because they were outside and the next day their parents were dancing while they were AGAIN unsupervised, wandering by themself. And you had to read all of that just so Fyodor grows in like a month and then leaves, apparently the Owl Witch is going to take care of them, but she can’t even handle her own kids. I think this plot could’ve been better if it was given to a stable couple and they could have even changed the way the parents take care of their mavka kids once they grow up, but sadly it wasn’t.<br><br>And then the plot just gets dragged on for more pages, I just skipped a bunch of them, even the smut, can you imagine how tired I was of the book to skip the smut?<br><br>Still, I'm very excited for the next book. I went in knowing I maybe would dislike it just so I could read the next one without missing anything.
- 2025 reread ~ Honestly, I love Delora and Magnar, their story is beautifully done. It's a different tone to book 1 and I still really enjoy it. ------------------------------------------ I was so happy when I realised which Duskwalker this book was based on. It was a different vibe to the first book, that is for sure. Delora's character was very different to Reia, and so it's really hard to compare the two books directly. This book captures a woman who was wronged in many ways, and was defeated, she was ready to give up and accept her death. What we see, is how she is built back up with the help of her duskwalker, who albiet had no idea what the ever loving fluff was going on, but that made it all the more cuter. Don't get me wrong, there is some rock ass monster smut going on. This book is a lot more character growth and harnesses raw emotion. There is also more insight into the world building, there is another encounter with the demon king, we learn a bit more about the workings of Duskwalkers (Mavka). It's honestly a really good read.