This was a really cool, multi-cultural, literary, cosmic horror. The woman and the Tyrant are exceptional antagonists. This was a unique take on possession, and I feel like I learned about other cultures along the way - which is always a good time. I loved that each victim was affected differently, by the same woman, who serves a lovecraftian entity - throw in a little sapphic romance and I’m hooked. I think the end will be polarizing, but I really enjoyed it.

I received a digital advance copy of Old Soul by Susan Barker via NetGalley. Old Soul is scheduled for release on January 28, 2025.

Old Soul weaves together the story of a woman determined to stay alive for as long as she can (by any means necessary) with the stories of the people who encounter her and don’t live to tell the tale. Their stories are discovered by Jake, a man whose best friend died under odd circumstances after meeting a mesmerizing dark haired women. Jake sets out to find out who the woman is, and what she is doing to those who dare to get too close.

The primary character we get to know in this novel is “the woman,” who goes by different names in different places. While we do not get to know a lot about her past, we do get up close and personal with her deepest desire: survival. We also meet several people she has relationships with, both through her perspective and through Jake’s interviews of the loved ones they left behind. Despite the interviews each focusing on a new character and their world, Barker does an impressive job of making each of the featured characters come to life, essential pulling together several mini-stories to form the threads that make up this novel.

The woman travels around the globe, resulting in several different settings in this novel. The most important ends up being New Mexico, as the woman returns her several times, trying to reclaim the one relationship that ever felt real to her. Other settings are less well developed, but work for the portions of the story that take place there.

I was impressed by Barker’s ability to weave this story together. Each interview with Jake feels like a complete short story, while still clearly being connected to the main plot of the novel. In the last portion of the book, all of these pieces of the woman’s past come together in a climax that is a bit action, a bit horror, and absolutely devastating.

Overall, Old Soul is a horror novel that digs deep into one of life’s primal questions: how far are you willing to go to stay alive? While it does have horrific moments (some graphic), these are used to explore complex and heavy themes. I would recommend this for readers who enjoy both horror and literary fiction.

Thank you NetGalley and Putnam Books for this ARC.

This truly was a unique book, I've never quite read anything like it. I also don't know how to review it without giving anything away.

It's almost like a collection of short stories with an overarching story. Every switch of the story I groaned unsure if I would like the next one and every time I was sucked in.

This book was haunting, it was beautifully written, and I really enjoyed it. It takes you through time and across the world.

I only went with a 4/5 because I wanted to know the why a little more. However I'm not sure that would have been satisfying either.

If you are looking for something unique that will stick with you, this is it.

What first caught my attention with this book was the concept of a character trying to solve what turns out to be a decades-long mystery. I enjoyed the way the story was told through different time periods and different characters and getting to read along to see how it was all connected.

It was sufficiently creepy with a kick-you-in-the-gut ending that always makes for a satisfying horror read.

It was fast-moving and reminiscent of an X-Files-type Monster of the Week story, which I loved. In a strange way, it also reminded me a little bit of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - if Addie LaRue was a much darker and much more evil person.

I would recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, dark, and mysterious read with a creative premise. However, if you enjoy happy endings that are tied up neatly in a bow, this might not be the best book for you!

The best way to be immortal, the woman says, is not to die.

A solid 5-star read for me, until the ending. I wanted to throw the book against the wall and curse the Fates and the Tyrant and whoever else might be in control of the vast, black cosmos that we merely live our pathetic lives in.

"Old Soul" is the dark, cosmic horror I did not think I was missing in my life. It's told in a series of investigations, after a chance encounter in an airport in Osaka, Japan, leads a Brit on a desperate search for a mysterious woman who never seems to age, and leaves a trail of dead behind her. The stories are beautifully told, but there is a sense of dread that permeates the characters even prior to the arrival of the mysterious woman. The lives of the characters are already flawed, or broken or dark, and like a skilled predator the woman is drawn to easy prey. Or, perhaps, the Tyrant knows how to select the next offering.

This book was compelling and kept me reading non-stop over the course of two days. I so wished for a different ending, even though I know that anything different would have not been the same. And, I am amazed at the author's talents in this book. A great find! My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an advanced reading copy.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy of Old Soul in exchange for an honest review.

I had a tough time with this one, primarily because the author does not use quotation marks for dialogue, which drives me absolutely nuts. Since this is a NetGalley read, I tried to push through that, but ultimately, it impacted my reading experience and turned this into what felt like a run-on fever dream.

The opening was intriguing, albeit creepy. I felt like there could have been some demonic transference, as I had vivid, dark dreams when I first started reading this. The story is about a demonic-like presence that hops between bodies... I guess? Honestly, I had a hard time connecting the random stories in this.

I’m throwing in the towel in the long last chapter (showing an hour+ on my Kindle) since it’s getting more demonic, and seeing other reviews that say the ending is very violent. I do not feel like I want to deal with that or continue.

Overall, this was more of a unique read that teetered towards the literature fiction category with the writing, and since it was random and hard to follow, LOL.

If you want to try and give it a shot, Old Soul is scheduled to drop on 1/28/25, but I can’t say I recommend this.

This one started off so strong for me but unfortunately the story started going in a different direction and I couldn't recapture my interest.

I really enjoyed the idea and the cover is really cool. I think readers will find it captivating and pull them in.

I wish the book had been more in my style but someone else would probably like it more!

Thank you to NetGalley, Susan Barker, and Penguin Publishing Group for the opportunity to read Old Soul. I have written this review voluntarily and honestly!

Great horror is made when you care about the characters and become invested in their journey, even the Antagonist. And Old Soul by Susan Barker captures it so well. There we some real spooky tension building moments, which I love in the horror genre but can be so hard to capture in the written word and in this book I felt my heart race a time or two.

I enjoyed the literary device of blending testimonials and pov narration. As mentioned above you even become invested in the antagonist, not necessarily to root for them but just to see what is going to happen. Because of the character development, pacing and various backdrops of different timelines I felt this book to be very captivating and wanted to finish it as quickly as I could. I would highly recommend this book for those looking for some light elements of horror, good tension and deeper character development.

4 stars.

In Osaka, Japan, two strangers, Jake and Marino both miss a flight. They decide to have dinner together have find they have both lost loved ones after those people met with a woman who was never seen again. Jake is trying to follow the path of the woman and he tracks her throughout the world, managing to find others who have friends or relatives who have encountered her.

At the same time Theo, a sculptor who is dying in New Mexico may be the only one who can tell Jake who the woman really is.

This was interesting. A very different kind of vampire story. Plus I was reading two ARCs at one time and in both the villain popped out someone’s eye. Coincidence? This had quite a satisfying end. I enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Old Soul.

Whenever a book is categorized as literary horror, I know its means two things:

1. It's going to be really well-written

2. The story is going to be really boring

And I was right with Old Soul.

This is more of a character driven story, revolving around Jake and Mariko's serendipitous meeting, which leads Jake on a dangerous pursuit of a mysterious person who has left a trail of broken bodies and shattered families behind.

The backstories are well-written but wordy and long. You get to meet many different kinds of people from all walks of life but you don't really bond or relate to anyone.

I'm all for exposition and world building, but the narrative sacrifices suspense and excitement as readers are pulled into each testimonial after another.

At the same time, this mysterious person is on the hunt for another soul and soon she and Jake will collide.

This is not horror, but it does have supernatural elements, which I love and wished the author spent more time incorporating into the narrative.

Some scenes are creepy and unsettling, but me being me, I wanted to know more about this mysterious person.

Where does she go when she's not hunting a soul? What does she do, how does she spend her time?

Is her life nothing more than hunting innocent people for their essence?

How has centuries of seeking prey warped her mind and 'soul?' And does she have one after all these decades?

Who or what is the Tyrant? Is it Satan? A demon? An entity of unknown and even older origins?

I didn't like or sympathize with Jake or anyone else; I actually felt Jake's characterization was off-putting, I can't quite put my finger on why.

Despite the well written but monotonous backstories, the globe trotting and diversity of characters, the narrative lacked substance and depth.

Very atmospheric and gripping from the first page. I really liked reading the testimonials from different characters, and hearing stories set across different time periods. It felt very sinister as I turned each page and crept closer to the old soul. I’m not sure if I loved the ending, so maybe 3.75 for me. The dip into something speculative yet poetic felt ungrounded from the very gritty feeling of the novel.

The writing in this book was beautiful and heady, and kept me turning the page and losing time. The characters were intricate and well-crafted, and I could not predict where the plot went. Excellent.

Most of this book was great. Great story and plot line, the different POV's wasn't confusing and overall, it was a great read. Where it fell short was not punctuating the dialogue. I had to re-read parts because it got confusing at times. Punctuation is there for a reason, use it!

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this story, but I don’t think it was this. I was way more invested than I anticipated being, given the story structure and the mostly absence of a singular protagonist. The novel is dark and contemplative, a painful memory infused with equal parts love and fear, and it is remarkably effective.

The first thing to mention is the writing style and narrative structure. As the jacket copy mentions, you have a strange woman doing whatever she needs to stay alive, and you have Jake who is crisscrossing the world interviewing the loved ones of the bodies that seem to be in her wake. For most of the story we alternate between shorter chapters that are following the woman in the present day and longer chapters that are “testimonies,” interviews/memories of people whose lives have ben touched by her. While the woman does become our central character we don’t spend a lot of time with her, and while Jake is ostensibly the character doing the investigations he is largely absent from these testimonies, he is just witness to them. So, we meet a wide array of engaging, painfully realized characters, but they come and get. They have their vignette, their moment to shine, and we move on. As someone who is deeply invested in character this did keep me at arm’s length. The characters were all incredibly well-realized, none felt boring or simple, none were just occupying space, but the story didn’t revolve around any of them. There are some characters we spend more time with, especially the final testimony which is more than double the length of the other ones, and we do get to live within their lives a little more completely, but in the end the various characters aren’t the story. The woman is at the center of the story, and while we learn a lot about her she is also an enigma, we learn about her from others’ experiences of her. And yet, even though my devotion to character did keep this story at arm’s length, the writing and pacing, and the exploration of what it means to find happiness amidst our mortality, pulled me in close.

With each testimony, each vignette, we had a new world to explore, a different time, a different place. The individuality of the various panoply of characters worked to define the worlds they lived in, whether it be Japan, western Europe, or New Mexico. The writing is skillful and precise, fusing character and time and place in a way that feels comfortable, lets the reader sink into each new chapter, each new testimony, with ease. These are punctuated by the ongoing storyline, the one where we don’t know the outcome, where there is danger and mystery and every time we are pulled back to the present we are reminded of the very real dangers this woman carries with her, and it does a great job of keeping you invested. Additionally, there are no grammatical indications of dialogue, no quotation marks demarcating speech from exposition, and while it never gets in the way of clearly understanding any given scene it does evoke a slippery, almost dream-like experience.

The story manages to combine the expected with surprises in a way that kept me turning pages. If character growth and development is the most important aspect of a book for you then this might be a little light for you, since it does jump from vignette to vignette, even though everything coalesces into an unexpected conclusion. Yet the writing and story are really engaging, and the variety of characters we meet all feel valuable. What would you do to survive, and what would you do to avenge the memory of a loved one wronged? Is love more powerful than survival instincts? This dark story has all these questions and more seething under the surface, boils waiting to be lanced.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Penguin Publishing Group | G.P. Putnam's Sons, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

She leaves misery, destruction, and confusion in her wake. The friends and family of her victims are haunted by her, ruing the day she came into their lives. Susan Barker’s intense new novel, Old Soul, is a kaleidoscope of emotions. We follow a few of those friends and family as they piece together what happened to their loved ones years and decades earlier and, more importantly, who it was who took such passionate artists away from them.

It’s a marvel that any of these people scattered in her wake ever figured out that there was someone (something?) out there responsible for their losses. Jake and Mariko met entirely by chance when they both miss their plane. When they talk, they learn that they both lost a loved one in bizarre circumstances. It’s the details—complaints about swapped organs, a mysterious woman who later vanished—that clue them in. Without those details, the deaths could be dismissed as drug addiction and overdose or a mental breakdown that turned deadly. The strange death of Mariko’s brother leads Jake to another person, then another, and another, who had a friend or relative die after meeting and falling under the sway of an unknown woman. Without those details, the deaths could be dismissed as drug addiction and overdose or a mental breakdown that turned deadly.

Jake’s investigation is interwoven with the testimonies of other people who lost someone to the woman Jake knows as Marion. We also meet Marion herself, though she is going by yet another name now, as she coaxes a young would-be influencer deeper into the New Mexico desert. If the testimonies weren’t enough to convince us that Jake is right and that Marion is a very dangerous person, the woman’s chapters definitely will. Her chapters slowly reveal the mystery at the heart of her actions, a mystery that has kept her young and unchanging for decades (as far as Jake knows).

I wish Old Soul had come into my hands in October as it is one of the most harrowing books I’ve read; it would’ve been a perfect Halloween read. It also has something that I crave in fiction: originality. Old Soul has elements of horror and psychological thriller and historical fiction, blended together like nothing I’ve seen before. Because it defies genre, I had no idea where Barker was taking me. I raced through the pages, following clues along with Jake. I had no outside knowledge to pull on to get ahead of Jake or predict how the book would end. Old Soul left me breathless, as if I’d been literally running along with Jake, instead of just metaphorically. This book is absolutely outstanding.

This was a really interesting one. It felt a little like reading an A24 movie as it dealt with some really highbrow ideas and felt very artsy for a horror novel. I love A24 movies, but I was skeptical that this would work for me in printed form. But I have to say that I enjoyed this one. It was really different and left me thinking about it constantly. This is such an original concept and one that the more I thought about it, the more chilling the premise was.

I loved the idea of this woman who meets people, inherently changes them from the inside, and then moves on. This was so chilling, particularly with those who outwardly presented their change with features on their right side flipping to the left. Although this is a slower burn, the testimonials of all of the survivors of those affected by this woman are heartbreaking and so beautifully descriptive that I didn’t want to put this down. The ultimate deaths of these people were quite graphic and horrific. What I really loved is that you as the reader also become enthralled with this woman that is destroying lives as you try to figure out her motivations and who she is. She felt like a spectre haunting the story throughout.

The present day timeline is just as interesting, and the way it all ties together is so beautifully done as the testimonials catch up to the enigmatic woman who is after her next victim. I truly wasn’t expecting the explanation behind it, but I thought it was tied together so elegantly. There is also a kind of gothic romance thrown in which is really interesting and also adds to the mystery that I loved.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this read and can’t wait for more people to read it when it releases in January! I think particularly if you are a fan of gothic fiction or more slower-burn horror, this one is a must read. For those that take the time to really sit with this one, it is such a rewarding read.

A unique and haunting tale told partly through a series of recollected encounters with a mysterious European woman that span over two centuries. This is a hard story to summarize and is probably not for everyone, but I enjoyed the style and writing very much. I look forward to reading more from Susan Barker. Thank you to NetGalley for a chance to read and review this book!

A woman has been able to stay alive for nearly three centuries thanks to a deal with a diabolical force known as the Tyrant. The cost is a trail of death across centuries and continents. As she prepares her next victim in the New Mexico desert, one man on a quest to stop her is closing in. The drama in the desert is interspersed with the stories of her previous victims. This horrifying, sinister story is impossible to put down and leads to a devastating conclusion.

I read the uncorrected proof of OLD SOUL by Susan Barker on my Kindle.

As the story opened, two women were in the desert. One is an artist, the other the subject. They have become lovers for the time being. Soon one will leave and live her life eternally. The tyrant will choose each victim and grant that eternity.
Two strangers meet in an airport and get to talking. Before long, the two discover they knew people murdered by the same person. The catch...they were thousands of miles apart and the killer is not aging.

I am not sure what I feel about OLD SOUL. In the beginning I couldn't stop reading, but then I lost interest and just couldn't seem to get into it. To me, it became too repetitive with people missing and not enough within the story. For instance, I would have preferred more information about the tyrant and his origins. What does the tyrant get from the arrangement? The epilog was well written, interesting, but it seemed as if it should be the beginning instead of the end to a story.

Wow... I had a great time with this one. Kind of like being caught in a spiral I couldn't put it down once I started.

The writing is quite lovely. It does read very much as a contemporary literary fiction novel, whatever you picture that to be, (complete with lack of quotations; though I didn't find this distracting or confusing) with just enough grotesque imagery and cosmic horror themes woven it to make it a bit unnerving and chilling at times. While I found it occasionally unsettling I could see how if you went in specifically for horror it's a little light.. so it could be disappointing. (Though that epilogue ... what's more horrific than that....)

It did reach a small point around the 60-75% lulled a bit for me, while it was trying to lay out the framework for the ending. I was a bit unsure how I would ultimately rate it, especially if the landing was flubbed, but the enjoyment I had while reading as a whole was pretty overwhelming and I personally liked how it wrapped up.... so I happily would recommend this title to the right person. 4 stars :) I support women's rights and wrongs

Thanks NetGalley for the digital ARC this was a treat. Definitely need to check out Barker's backlog