The Twice-Sold Soul

The Twice-Sold Soul by Katie Hallahan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was definitely something different than my usual read. Sure, it’s in the paranormal romance genre, but it is told in a sort of “joining a story already in progress” sort of way that had me on my toes.

We join McKenna years after a very big event that left her on the run, blocking her magic, and essentially playing martyr. You know how we usually have to deal with someone making that martyr decision (e.g., to protect everyone I need to run away without a word!) - well in this book, that decision and events leading up to it have already happened, and now we get to dive right into the ramifications. It’s bad - as expected. McKenna’s ex ends up finding her and trading back a favor to get her back home.

Can we pause a moment to celebrate the truly gender bending demon, Remi. It’s weird and awesome and something complete new, which I love. Does Remi do demon-like things? Uh, yeah, she’s a demon (using she as that is the most common form), but I found myself somehow excited about these two potentially hooking back up, during a high school reunion of all places. We get to meet all the people who used to be McKenna’s close friends in a way that had me more interested than maybe I would have been had we gone through a book 0.5 to set this one up. The big magical story here is about this magical town’s defenses failing and the truth about McKenna’s big traumatic event coming to light.

As an introductory book, this checked all the boxes. We met a wealth of characters, all of which felt big enough to dig into for future installments. We have a complex magical system with all the paranormals you’d expect and then some. You’ve got family drama, owed favors, loose ends, and demonic hierarchies all ready to fill many more installments. While this book started a little slow and strange, by the end I was all in.

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