A Circle of Souls, by Preetham Grandhi

I received an ARC of A Circle of Souls in the mail several weeks ago and immediately added it to my pile of books to be read. The author, Dr. Preetham Grandhi, contacted me through a book review website and asked if I would be interested in reviewing his debut novel. Excited, I said yes. Eventually my TBR pile dwindled and I made my way to A Circle of Souls.

This novel is a psychological thriller and a murder mystery, mixing in with it elements of the paranormal. Any fan of shows like CSI, House MD, or Law & Order will easily be able to relate to the book. While I like these types of shows, I have only read a very few books in this genre, so I started the book in slight trepidation, slight intrigue.

The prologue was riveting and tragic, descriptive and vague, and bloody. It was one of those scenes that you can (morbidly) visualize. A young girl is found murdered in a small university town in Connecticut, and a FBI agent comes to investigate. Another young girl is enrolled into a child psychiatric hospital for evaluation. Her doctor, Peter, notices some peculiar attributes to the girl and a possible connection to the murder. From here, the story takes off until an impressive (albeit short) climax.

Some things I liked about A Circle of Souls. The book was fast paced and read quickly. It kept me up late one night flipping pages until I was too tired to continue. I really liked the care and compassion Peter had for his patients. The idea behind the slaaf was intriguing. The book was logical, succinct, and laid out cleanly.

Some things I did not like about A Circle of Souls. At times it felt like there were too many POV chapter switches in too close a time. I felt some of these chapters, especially early in the book, could be combined into making longer chapters. I felt that some of the backgrounds between characters were too similar. The book was logical, too succinct, and too clean.

Overall, I was impressed by Dr. Grandhi's debut. There were several simple editing mistakes (like not paragraphing between dialogue mainly), this was not too distracting, and the book was an ARC, too. It felt good to read a book in a genre I rarely venture into, and I enjoyed the read. You can find A Circle of Souls on Amazon, or click here for a direct link.