Review: A Circle of Souls

By Preetham Grandhi

From the back of the book:

“The sleepy town of Newbury, Connecticut, is shocked when a little girl is found brutally murdered. The town’s top detective, perplexed by a complete lack of leads, calls in FBI agent Leia Bines, an expert in cases involving children. Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Gram, a psychiatrist at Newbury’s hospital, searches desperately for the cause of seven-year-old Naya Hasting’s devastating nightmares.”

I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It has the elements of several different styles of writing, including horror, mystery and psychological thriller. And it was also refreshing in that there was no sex or vulgar language.

However, there are vivid descriptions of murder that could potentially make some readers queasy.

I’ve always been a fan of this type of story. I cut my serious reader teeth on Stephen King and, at one time, that’s about the only author I’d follow. It was when I ran out of books by King that I began branching out to different authors and genres.

“A Circle of Souls” was sent to me by the author and I’m glad I agreed to review his book.

There are several elements I liked about Preetham’s style of writing. First, I liked his short, punchy chapters. I also enjoyed the way he wove the different stories together to come full circle to where they connected.

I also liked how he described the characters so you really felt like you knew them and understood their thought processes. You knew whether you were supposed to like a character or not because their personalities came through in the writing.

Plus, it was an interesting story line integrating several belief systems, including Hinduism and Jamaican voodoo.

As you get toward the end of the book and you think you have it figured out, Preetham throws a curve ball and provides a surprise ending that makes perfect sense.

Great read, super writer … I’m looking forward to more work by this author in the future.