Review: No Need to Sell your Soul Mate to the Devil
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 13, 2012
"Soul mate." This seems to be the term that's in vogue these days for that one particular person who enters your life and complements everything you do to full capacity, regardless of whether it's work, sex, play, family, music, travel, pets---you get the picture.Wow, where do I sign up?Seems to me that such an apt description is relegated to daydreams, afternoon soap operas, Bill Clinton, and romantic/erotic literature. In this particular case, the latter is highly accurate. And that's where Sandra Ross puts her considerable writing talents to good use with her book "Soul Mates Kiss: Witching Call Part 1."Ross introduces her readers to Lola, a striking blonde with a talent for writing and publishing. She works as a book editor in New York City, and lives with her father, Davis, an attorney who, like Lola, loves his work and is tolerant of her choices in life, especially where earning a living is concerned. Despite the fact that Lola's parents have been divorced for most of her life, they remain cordial and supportive of their daughter in all of her endeavors."Soul Mates" opens with Lola and her father enjoying their morning breakfast ritual, which is an activity that reflects their staid, routine-oriented personas. Lola remarks to her father that she will be entertaining a new client, which doesn't seem to phase either of them, as Ross presents both characters as accepting of each other's choices in life. Ross provides her readers with sufficient foreshadowing that Lola comes across as a decent, grounded, focused young woman with enough ambition and self-initiative to accomplish whatever she sets out to do.Such a scenario seems unlikely to develop into one of Ross's steamier novellas. Yet that is what eventually happens, as she meets the mysterious Marcus, a gentleman with a unique and storied past.Marcus hails from New Orleans, which is where Lola flies in order to get to know him better on a professional level. Yet when they meet, they experience an instantaneous attraction---something that would not have necessarily occurred had they been back in New York. On the surface, Lola can not recall ever having encountered Marcus before. Yet Lola feels as if she has known him forever---and maybe they have!This is where the "soul mate" concept asserts itself. Ross makes suggestions throughout "Soul Mates" that there has been a near-continuous presence of deja vu for Lola, but Lola remains unaware of it---until certain events take place that start her thinking about who she is, what her own past is like, and how everything seems to tie in to meeting and eventually falling in love with Marcus.What is especially compelling in "Soul Mates" is Lola's pursuit of Marcus's past so that she can find answers to the incessant questions that arise within her psyche. Ross writes in a fast-paced style that keeps her readers interested in Lola's adventures in New Orleans and New York, as she is gradually immersed in Marcus's world.Some people argue that things happen for a reason. Perhaps such a claim is true. Perhaps it is what can be termed "fate." Others, such as myself, might attribute such happenstances as coincidence, and not necessarily assert that what takes place is "meant to be." Regardless of where her readers stand, Ross has written a highly interesting story that combines the fantastic with the boy-meets-girl theme of most of her tomes.