Review: Half a Soul

Half a Soul by Olivia Atwater
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

Half a Soul was a fantasy, magical realism story set in Regency England. When Theodora Ettings (Dora) was ten years old, Lord Hollowvale, a fae, attempts to steal her soul, claiming her mother sold it to him years ago. In the midst of stealing it, Dora's cousin Vanessa comes up behind him and stabs him in the leg with a pair of iron embroidery scissors. Iron to fae is deadly and while it gets Lord Hollowvale to run away, he does get half of Dora's soul. When Dora's aunt sees one of Dora's eyes has changed to grey, she knows Dora is fae-cursed and swears Dora and Vanessa to secrecy, so the family isn't shunned. The story then jumps nine years in the future and we see how only having half a soul has affected Dora. 

Elias blinked at her. “I will admit,” he said, “you are proving to be far more interesting than I first assumed, Miss Ettings.” 

This was a very soft and light magical realism story and even though there are evil fae, they are portrayed as exaggerated dandys, thinking they are better than the humans of the day but also trying to top their cultural norms; Lord Hollowvale wears five coats to show his wealth. While Dora is fae-cursed with only half a soul, it's still business as usual and since her cousin Vanessa is eighteen, going to London for the season is still a must. Readers begin to realize that Dora's aunt isn't the kindest to her and often calls her a puppet. Lord Hollowvale seems to have taken the emotional side of Dora and left her with never feeling anything. With the help of her cousin Vanessa, Dora learns how she should react in situations and after saying something, Dora often reads people's reactions and begins to tell that what she said wasn't right or “normal”.

And maybe Dora was imagining it, but she thought that perhaps Elias was thinking something similar – that he gained some small comfort from holding onto her, and that it would be difficult for him to set that comfort aside. 

We learn that Vanessa agreeing to go to London was dual purpose, she hopes to get the Lord Sorcier, Elias Wilder, to cure Dora. While there isn't much world building, there actually doesn't need to be too much because this is magical realism and if you know about London in the 1810s, you know the world, with just added fae and magic interjected. Elias has a dangerous reputation, he seems to have come from nowhere, earning the title of Lord Sorcier after fighting Napoleon's army in France and with fear and suspected humble beginnings, society doesn't exactly welcome him. He has a friend Albert who he met in the war. Albert is a physician with titled parents, he saved Elias' life and Elias in turn saved Albert by creating a silver arm for him when shrapnel took his. When Dora wanders into a magical bookshop during a downpour and Elias comes up behind her, I felt that spark between them. 

“Are faeries and magicians both afraid of scissors, then?” 

Elias agrees to try and help Dora but he's also working on curing a plague, a sleeping plague that seems to mostly be affecting children. I love when magical realism takes a real world mystery (encephalitis lethargica, most notably early 1900s) and works to give it reason by creating a fantasy explanation. It's a great part of story-telling, working out those emotions that sometimes have nowhere to go. In fact, this story seemed to be an adult version of children's books where things not deemed “normal” in the real world were laid out to show that just because things or people are “different” doesn't mean that they don't deserve respect or love. Dora read coded as Autistic spectrum disorder to me, her not feeling emotions as other people or reading social interactions correctly. Thinking this throughout had me actually not anticipating the ending because I worried how her only having half her soul was going to play out. I don't want to spoil the ending but I'm going to tell you right now, it's handled perfectly in way that respects Dora and the messaging threaded throughout the story. Dora, rightly, was the star of the show but there was other messaging of war and economic inequality that added to that children's book style but with adults I mentioned. 

Elias leaned closer towards her under cover of the dim starlight. Dora stared at him, entranced, as his forehead pressed lightly to hers. 

“I don't want to wake up either,” he whispered. 

She felt his breath along her cheek as he said the words. The whisper shivered its way into her heart, and Dora thought, Oh dear. Because she was now quite sure that she was in love. 

The romance between Dora and Elias had sweet moments, you're only going to get a true love's kiss, kind of off-screen at that, but I could still feel the something between them. This was a quick read, a little over 200pgs, and I thought paced out just right. Around 60% we learn a secret about Elias and then Lord Hollowvale comes back into the picture as Dora gets trapped with the fae, learns what happened to the other half of her soul (this part was a little wonky) and the sleeping plague comes into play in a big way. The ending doesn't wrap everything up in a perfect bow but with the resolution with Dora, like I said, perfect. When Elias tells Dora that he fell in love with her exactly as she was, I can see some readers getting a tear in their eye. 

Very light on the fantasy aspects and angst, this was a magical realism story that cloaked its messaging in a sweet way. There were human machinations, mama's trying to marriage mart scheme, and fae evil doings. A great early October read to dip your toe into an otherworldly setting that was sweet and charming.

View all my reviews