Wow! It’s an impressive start and refreshing brand new installment! A town filled with its own spiritualist citizens, a mystery behind lost prelude of the song, a special, sacred community called Guild! Intriguing plot, tempting paranormal world building, well-balanced representation of LGBTQ! Yes, it seems like, I’m into this! I have no choice. Have you seen the hypnotizing cover? It just sent me so messages into my brain cells to read the chapters ASAP!

The story starts with 17 years old, Dec Hampton’s moving to St. Hilarie to live with his sisters after his parents’ death at the accident. A town belongs to the spiritualists as like his family. But he rejects his talents and his ancestors. He doesn’t want to do anything with ghosts, spirits and he only focuses on his graduation from high school to get the hell out of the town ASAP! But he finds himself being drafted by town’s divine functioning body called “Guild”. He needs a way out ASAP!

But when his longtime crush piano prodigy Annie Krylova’s coincidental arrival (her train just broke down outside of the town but should we believe this explanation which brings them together.) and her need to find the lost prelude of mysterious music piece to honor her teacher’s memory make them merge their powers to achieve this challenging ,mostly impossible task. But this means he has to spend his more time at this town and fix his stranded relationship with his best friend Russ who is not happy to see Annie and Dec’s intimacy.

And let’s not forget the sweet Russ Griffin who wants to make Guild a better place, ruining his relationship with his mother by deciding to move to St. Hilarie. Now he needs to face with his own demons including his ex lover Ian Mackenzie’s ghost. (I think I loved their relationship parts more than Annie and Dec’s unnamed relation- they had lots of untold words bottled up, I wanted to scream at them and force them to communicate each other.)

The beginning of the story was intriguing but second half was a little bit repetitive and slow which made me lose interest. And I couldn’t love Annie and Dec’s parts and I couldn’t connect with the characters but luckily I enjoyed Russ’s storyline and let’s not forget Tristan which was amazing, intriguing, captivating character helped me not to put this book on my dnf pile.

And ending was also interesting and it made me want to keep on reading this story’s continuation.

This is my first Helene Dunbar novel but I assure you it won’t be the last. I liked the writing style and creative storyline.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire to share this dazzling ARC with me in exchange my honest review.

Prelude for Lost Souls By Helene Dunbar

Summary

Dec and Russ live in St. Hilaire, a town known for its ability to communicate with the dead. Russ needs a little boost when it comes to this particular skill, and Dec would rather not have it at all. In fact, Dec would rather not live there.

Annie is a well known pianist mourning the recent loss of her teacher when her train breaks down outside of St. Hilaire. She finds herself staying at Dec’s home with his two sisters.

Together, the three will discover the secret of a recently dead Ian Mackenzie and the secret of Dec’s piano.

Thoughts

I thought the plot was beautifully crafted; I really enjoyed the pairing of mediums and music. I really loved the mystery of it all. I also loved that there were several mysteries that were all intertwined. I felt like I was still left wanting answers, but also that everything was wrapped up nicely (definitely a strange combination that I have respect for).

I can’t say that I was well attached to any of the characters. They all had pretty annoying character flaws (I fully appreciate those authors who know that all characters need to have a flaw!). Regardless of the fact that I was annoyed by the main characters, I was far more annoyed with the secondary characters who were too obsessed with their own greed. At least the main characters had their moral compasses pointing in a mostly correct direction.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced reading copy.

This book kept me spellbound. Dunbar creates a believeable and enticing world with a depth of background. The characters are normal teens within the realm of their not so normal differneces, but they didn't feel false or gimmicky.

The conflicts in the book range from characters' personal issues to hidden power schemes, but woven together in the real-life way our problems tend to interact. Dunbar uses the larger conflicts to help characters deal with their internal issues, which allows each of them to grow.

Overall, I will recommend this book to my students.

This book is really unique in a great way. The plot threads were interesting and unlike anything I've read, keeping me enthralled until the end of the book. While I grew attached to one character in particular who fascinated me, I was hoping to feel more for the rest of the characters and the fact that hope was never met is the only reason I'm not classing this book as a new favourite. However, I think other readers will all be able to find the characters likeable and heroes to root for. It's been a long time since I've been so excited to continue in a series, as I really believe I'll grow to love our main characters and I'm anticipating the rest of their story.

A spooky novel with some cool characters and a winding and twisting plot that captures you right from the start.

I enjoyed reading this fine book and like to thank you for the opportunity.

I'd really like authors to do their homework when writing about music and musical instruments. A piano is central to this YA melodrama about spiritualists and ghosts set in a fascist version of Lilydale, but the author seems to think that keys are attached directly to strings. This is just one of many weird and incorrect assumptions Dunbar makes about mechanical objects--including cars--and other things in an ultimately dull story of several teenagers making decisions about their lives and futures. The characters are flaccid and their decision-making processes, though, are erratic and changeable and nonsensical, and in the end I didn't really care what any of them did or didn't do because they just weren't interesting or compelling. The fascism of the town might have hit a greater nerve if it had been more present and less of an afterthought.

Overall, I loved this book!
Dec, Russ, and Annie are our main characters. Dec cannot wait to leave his hometown of St. Hilaire where all the inhabitants are mediums and members of the Guild. Russ is an up and coming medium, talented like his grandmother before him. He's punk and gay and I love him. Annie is a world class prodigy musician stuck in St. Hilaire after her train breaks down. Dec just so happens to have a magic haunted piano and Annie has an unfinished piece of music.
The few things I didn't like:
They make a point of saying that ghosts won't help you without a price, but then proceed to ignore it for a good amount of the book.
There were a few facts that the book got wrong and almost made me lower it to 3 stars:
--Russ should know how many cards are in a deck. It's 52 cards not including jokers, not the other way around. Even though the guild frowns at the use of cards, this is still universal knowledge.
--Also I don't know any piano where the strings are actually attached to the keys. It''s not how a piano works.

What I loved:
-I am here for witchy queers and ghosts with troubled pasts and this delivered.
-the love triangle actually almost brought me to tears. I hate love triangles, but this was subtle and sweet and I cannot thank this book enough for that.
-This is basically a pleasant combination of A Thousand Perfect Notes and The Raven Boys, and I love both of those books.
-haunted everything.
-
this book wins in the romance, characters, and world sections. I wish there was slightly more fact checking, and a little more world building (as in rules and limitations for ghosts), but overall it was fantastic and enjoyable and I will recommend it!

It´s the first book of a Series. I don´t know if i´m going to read the other books, the story was a good YA Melodrama/Fantasy Story.
But it was a bit hard to stay focused on the Characters.

I'd really like authors to do their homework when writing about music and musical instruments. A piano is central to this YA melodrama about spiritualists and ghosts set in a fascist version of Lilydale, but the author seems to think that keys are attached directly to strings. This is just one of many weird and incorrect assumptions Dunbar makes about mechanical objects--including cars--and other things in an ultimately dull story of several teenagers making decisions about their lives and futures. The characters are flaccid and their decision-making processes, though, are erratic and changeable and nonsensical, and in the end I didn't really care what any of them did or didn't do because they just weren't interesting or compelling. The fascism of the town might have hit a greater nerve if it had been more present and less of an afterthought.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for giving me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Welcome to St. Hilaire, a town full of mystery and mediums(not psychics). Everyone who resides within the city limits has some form of contact with the dead, including the reluctant Daniel "Dec" Hampton. His whole life he's been wanting to leave St. Hilaire, that is until a beautiful young woman rolls into town. Annie is a concert pianist who's work Dec has been a fan of for many years. When she arrives in St. Hilaire and is compelled to play an unfinished Prelude she finds herself tangled up with Dec and his best friend, Russ. Russ is still reasonably new to town, his family only moving to St. Hilaire a few years prior when Russ began to show signs of being a medium. Russ wants nothing more than to be a part of The Guild, the all powerful council of meduims in the town. When these three come into contact however, it seems a greater call awaits them. Can they solve the riddle placed before them and will all of it make it out alive?

I really enjoyed this novel! The characters were great and the point of view changes didn't feel forced, rather they flowed into one another seamlessly. The story moved at a great pace and left me wanting more everytime I had to put it down. My one and only gripe(without spoilers) was that the "big reveal" didn't give me enough detail! I wish I knew more about what brought them together, it was such an interesting concept that I felt wasn't played out to it's full potential. However, this is something that can happen at the beginning of a series, as the author is also just getting to know them and the world they live in. This book sets up for a sequel and I'll wait on baited breath to hear if one is granted. Pick up a copy and see for yourself what makes these three so special, they won't disappoint you.

A unique take on the paranormal and magical. I was absolutely captivated by the atmosphere, and the characters. This novel submerges the reader in a landscape so imaginative and detailed that the information of the world building/plot never feels forced, and is never difficult to understand or picture in one's mind. I would definitely recommend this for fans of Maggie Stiefvater!

This one was better in theory than in practice. The characters' voices didn't really fill out until the end, leading to being halfway through a chaper and having to go back to see whose perspective it was written from. It goat a whole bonus star for the cool cover.

#NetGalley #PreludeforLostSouls
A very strange and unique read of the paranormal genre. I think young adult fantasy readers will enjoy this opener to a new series. It has a little something for everyone.

Helene Dunbar has done it again. I absolutely adore her writing. Even while writing a book about a town full of paranormal activity, she is able to focus in on the human stories an the individual relationships that make everything real. She writes about LGBTQ relationships with incredible accuracy, and imbues her characters with strength and compassion. This a big difference from We Are Lost and Found, but the writing and the storytelling is still top notch. I highly recommend for any fans or anyone who has a particular interest in mediums and the paranormal, told through a YA lens.

**3.5 Stars**

This is one that on paper I should have adored without a second thought but in reality it was a bit of a struggle to stay focused up until the ending so though it wasn’t one that thrilled me it is the beginning of a series I plan on completing.

“Prelude for Lost Souls” shifts between the point of view for Dec, a young man who is tired of his small town and is waiting for the right time to run, Russ, Dec’s best friend who is willing to do whatever it takes to join the Guild and prove his worth as a medium and finally Annie, a prodigy looking to solve the mystery behind the lost prelude and make her late teacher proud.

I understand what this book was trying to do with the duel plots where one was meant to throw these characters together and the other is meant to tear them apart however I think the orchestration of it could have been handled better because it seemed almost like an after thought to have the eye in the sky like threat as I had spent so much time getting into the mystery of the music to remember that the Guild was being set up as a society to fear. I guess you could argue that that’s the point but I feel like for the confrontation scenes to work it could have leaned into plot points that were less subtle.

I really loved what Dec and Russ could have been and we get pieces of that sprinkled here and there when it comes to their friendship but then there are long spans where it seems like one takes more than he gives and made me root for one to find someone better because they were always doing so much with little appreciation but I realize, or at least hope, that that will come around in future books as one sinks deeper into the darkness and the other realizes that his freedom may really be a long leash. Annie was okay I feel like she really only served the purpose of being the hands for someone who could no longer play and leading someone else out the door but I’m hoping we get to learn more about her so she becomes a fully realized character.

Overall this isn’t bad but I think with a cover and synopsis like this I expected to be blown away but instead its more of a light breeze.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Daniel "Dec" Hampton has had enough of the small town where he lives with his sisters after the death of their parents. Not only does he and his family have the power to talk to the dead, he lives in an entire village of people who can as well. St. Hilaire is a town of spiritualists, who open the gates every summer and run seances and palm readings for the public. It is loosely based on the real life town of Lily Dale, New York.

Dec is going into his senior year and is being recruited to join the youth wing of the town's guild on the strength of his family's bloodlines. He has no interest in doing so. His plans are to leave town before the school year even starts.

His best friend, Russ, however, is all in. He has been experimenting with shooting up his grandmother's herbal potions in an effort to increase his spiritual power. He is really hoping that the Guild will take notice.

The story gets going after Dec manages to lose his family's antique piano in a poker game. They play for high stakes in St. Hilaire. He had been hoping to win the keys to a Mustang for his friend Russ. The piano refuses to move when the new owners try to take possession.

And then Dec's dream girl Anastasia "Annie" Krylova, a classically trained pianist touring the country, shows up on his doorstep after her vintage train breaks down. They've never met before but he has her picture taped up on the inside of his closet door.

Too much of a coincidence? Not when you realize that Annie is seeking the end to an unfinished piece of music and the piano in Dec's house might have something to do with it.

This book is similar to The Raven Boys and readers of Maggie Stievater should be very satisfied with this one. Strong, brooding guys searching for something mysterious in small town America with the dead being either helpful or unhelpful (and occasionally comical) as needed to keep the plot going.

This is the first in the series. The author left plenty of unfinished business in St. Hilare.