Following on from Marked and Cursed, Bound is the final entry in the Soulseer Chronicles, detailing the adventures of the sometimes inaccurately named psychic Lucky de Salle in her journey into the daemonic realm of the Underlands. Having only just found happiness with her two handsome lovers, the brooding angel Jamie and impish bad boy Jinx, Lucky is once again thrust into a world of danger when Jinx is kidnapped by genocidal megalomaniacs who want to use his powers as the Deathbringer to lay waste to the land of humans. With Jamie’s Guardian colleagues ordered to destroy Jinx to end the threat, Lucky and her allies are left as the only ones who can save both him and the entire world.
For all its fantasy trappings, the central pivot of the Soulseer books has always been Lucky’s developing relationships, principally her sisterly pairing with daemonic half-sibling Kayla, and the romantic trio she makes up with Jamie and Jinx. The story pushes each of these bonds to their respective limits, fully revealing the extremes of what Lucky is capable of, both to us and herself.
That much of the plot revolves around Jinx’s abduction means he is absent for large chunks of the story, which may be a little disappointing as many readers will have found his mischievous sense of fun far more appealing than Jamie’s steadfast but largely humourless loyalty. While the loss of his roguish quips throws off the balance of the group dynamic, it also emphasises the hole left by his absence, offering a constant reminder of what is at stake.
The closing instalment of any trilogy needs to bring things to a satisfying conclusion, and the story certainly achieves this in the culmination of Lucky’s development over the course of the books. Beginning as an isolated young woman whose only friend was a ghost, she has now grown willing to take charge of any situation and not wait around to be saved by her entourage of muscular menfolk, while her reaction to anyone threatening those she cares about has grown decisively merciless. Independence and single-mindedness have become her driving forces, and she ends the story a far better person for all the tribulations it has forced her to endure.
Despite Bound bringing the Soulseer trilogy to a fitting finale, it also offers hints that Tingey might not be done with the world of the Underlands, and should there be greater exploration of its weird and colourful fantasyscape, it would be more than welcome.
BOUND / AUTHOR: SUE TINGEY / PUBLISHER: JO FLETCHER BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
