The idea that magic is powered by the souls of the dead really is something new. The world-building and the character-building was really really impressive and after the initial dread that there might be too many viewpoints, I sincerely enjoyed switching from one great character to the next.
The only bad thing I can say is that it clearly is the first book in a series (trilogy? duology? who knows?) and I couldn't read on!

Usually I love Josephine Angelini, but I must admit that in this book it felt like there were a lot of very separate strings to keep track of and sometimes I struggled. The plot overall was good though and overall I did enjoy what turned out to be a pretty epic adventure.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

4.5 Stars

It was my first book received from NetGalley, and I was drawn in by the description.

Firstly, OMG, that ending!!! What a cliffhanger, dammit!

This is a fantastic book, I think I was at around 250 pages and I was like, this is REALLY good.

The story is told from seven different point of views, that come together towards the end of the book. No character is better than any other and they all have their flaws, maybe apart from Rain (Rainier) but he’s in love with someone and doesn’t realise this, not sure if that counts as a flaw? There are also some truly despicable secondary characters, and I’m hoping they get their sticky end (Lycus - a Joffrey/Ramsey Bolton type character and we know what happened to them)

There is a lot of politics, which I really enjoyed reminded me a little of Game of Thrones from that respect as well.

I loved the concept, that miracles are channeled but they come at a cost, that they deplete the miracle workers and that the miracles themselves are not provided by good as such.

Owenna, who is described as muscular and strong- which you so rarely see in fantasy books, had the most heartbreaking story.

The pacing was great, slow to start as the world building is introduced, but the last third of so of the book was fabulous and I didn’t want to put it down.

I will be looking for more books from the author and will definitely read the second book when released.

I think I may have to DNF this book at about the 42% mark. There were a few things that didn’t work for me, but notably the first thing that caught me off guard is that the race of slaves described in this book are all lighter-skinned than those who own them - and this is mentioned quite a few times. I only found one other review mentioning the possible racism in this book, and really tried to continue reading to give the book a fair chance since this isn’t a large author or publisher, but I do want to include this in my review so no other readers are caught off guard. I really think this book should have at least one, or a few, sensitivity readers added to it before the final product, as I think the concept of this book could be good if we removed the uncomfortable undercurrent of racism running throughout it.

I tried to continue reading past this initial point without too much judgment, hoping that it was just shaky worldbuilding, but this specific trait kept coming up. It also feels a bit odd that so many named characters are intentionally described as being “mixed” and this being obvious by their lighter skin, and that so many of the antagonists in this book are not. I’m not saying this was intentional, but it just didn’t sit right with me that an entire race of people - quite literally called “The Peaceful People” - live in forests, have no words for war, and are regularly enslaved by those with darker skin than them because they’re too peace-loving to fight back. It just feels like a really weird combination of the “noble savage” trope, as well as the idea that light-skin is somehow related to morality.

After the first part that specifically mentioned a character’s darker skin forcibly relating him to the literal race of slave-owners - the first mention of skin color in this book - it caught me so off guard that I started highlighting every mention of skin color after this point.

–
I’m reading this book as an advanced copy, so any quotes I’m including are subject to change or not be included in the final product. However, they were in my copy so I’m relating them here.

“Rif-Atten was <i>nearly as dark as a Ninelander </i>[group of people keeping the U-ru-ku as slaves], but he was U-ru-ku through and through, and eager to prove that fact <i>because of his coloring.</i>” - 3%

"'Are you part U-ru-ku or Chean?' Morrigan asked, noting his slightly <i>light-toned skin</i>. He was certainly <i>dark enough, </i>but surely there was more in his blood than upper-kingdom stock." - 9%

“All the slaves are fetched, that’s why they’re <i>so pale and fair. Bleached,</i> they are. <i>Without color or substance. </i>You can practically <i>see through them.”</i>

"Loren noticed the large man had just had a haircut. A thin strip of <i>pale skin </i>ringed his neck on an otherwise <i>deeply and carefully darkened complexion."</i>

The king (described with <i>”dark skin and hair -”</i>) who the enslaved woman at the beginning of this book was over twice her age when he bought her at 15. I’m mostly including this due to the fact that this isn’t the first time one of the people in this slave-owning society (remember, they all have dark skin) is attracted to or enters a sexual relationship with someone younger than them. It never says with the second person if the age is as concerning as a 15 year old, but it’s implied this second relationship is consensual despite the power imbalance. (There’s also a prince who marries and then assaults a girl of 16 (who is described as being as light as the race of slaves, even!) later in the book. This is seen as bad within the narrative of the book, but the visual of a violent darker skinned man assaulting a white woman didn’t help my initial feelings of unchecked racism within this book).

Mentioning the other man having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of those of the enslaved race:

“You see, Senalin? He may have lived among the most egregious of slavers, but he doesn’t judge you for <i>your light skin. Rather, he judges me for robbing the cradle.”</i> -10%

–
Now, the undercurrent of racism throughout wasn’t the only thing that put me off from this book, but it did sour the rest of my reading experience and make me less willing to forgive other slights and mistakes. I got the entirety through part one, and I felt not only were there too many POV characters, but that their chapters were mixed and included in a strange way. Timelines are all over the place, with one chapter happening and then another chapter either occurring before or after this chapter, but with no way to tell one way or the other. And then these two competing timelines would fight with each other, and so in the end I simply had no idea what was going on. This is not the final draft of this book, so it’s possible that the final product will add a timeline to each chapter heading, but since mine did not have one I was never certain who was doing what at any given time.

I also felt like there was almost no explanation within this book to tell you what was going on. Brand new words and concepts would just appear and be spoken about, with not even an internal definition or any way for the reader to figure out what these characters were talking about. There is a page that gives character names, and while I believe a glossary would have not been amiss, practically every fantasy book I’ve read (even those with a glossary) usually give a brief in-world definition of new terms to allow the reader to easily follow along. I’m not asking to be info-dumped at every given moment, but I feel like this book went too far in the opposite direction to the point that I was reading entire chapters without understanding what was going on, what these worlds meant, or how it was even relevant.

I think this, combined with how clunky the writing and dialogue itself was at times, that finally made my decision to stop reading entirely. Much of the writing itself felt awkwardly phrased, and concepts were written about in a very awkward fashion, that at many times it took me out of the story itself.

For instance, this was one of the first times that made me quite literally pause and reread what I just read, as it was so awkwardly written.

<i>“Sky’s face was passive. It’s not that she didn’t feel compassion, only that she had been trained in the Queensguard to cycle through such emotions quickly and without conscience. Sometimes Morrign felt a twinge of guilt about that.

‘The threat of war has done what nothing else ever has, then?’ Morrigan said and her guilty thoughts quickly turned to worry. She, too, had served a term in the Queensguard before her mother died and she had been forced to rise to the throne. And as such, Morrigan had been trained to cycle through emotions as rapidly as Sky had.”</i>

There are quite a few sections with information this awkwardly included, but this was the first and most noticeable that I had to make a note of. As I continued to read, I just tried to focus on reading/finishing the book rather than continuing to make notes as it wound up not being conducive to attempting to finish reading.

Finally, the characterization of a few of the women in this book kind of felt sexist-adjacent “not like other girls” to me - which isn’t the biggest issue, but since I’m including my other reasons for not finishing this book I’m including it here.

The Queen is described as only being in her 30s, and yet, somehow, this makes her “old enough” to not be “jealous” of Sky’s beauty. (Because all women are in competition with each other for looks, and for some reason being over 30 means you must be too old to care). The chapters that included both the Queen and/or Sky were very awkward at points, and at times it felt like the author was speaking to me, directly, about how women are just as capable as men. It felt less like worldbuilding and more like “inserting strong female characters into this sexist world to be better than the men, haha!”

The last instance of this before I quit reading, was when Sky seemingly took over an outpost and “figured all that out in less time than it takes most men here to find the shitter.” Not that competence isn’t realistic, but it is unrealistic for her to be seemingly great at everything she does without effort. Her entire character just felt very “the way Marvel writes strong women,” as opposed to anything else.

I’ll end my writing women rant with two quotes I highlighted when we met the Queen, here.

<i>“A fetching knitting needle, as if those who wished her dead felt they needed to mock her for being a woman. It still irked Morrigan to think about. Especially since she had no idea how to knit in the first place.” </i> Ah, yes. Only weak women knit.

<i>”The misogynists and slavers were aligning, and it wouldn’t be long before they collapsed upon her.”</i> - I’m mostly including this one, because it is insane to me to equate being sexist with owning literal human beings.
–
Now, I’d be willing to continue this book and give it more of a chance - especially if some sensitivity readers are added to hopefully curb some of the (hopefully) unintentional racism throughout. I don’t think I’ll have time to come back to this book, to see how it ends or how I feel about it, however, since it was only available through the Netgalley app and not on my Kindle, so I may have to simply end my reading where I did. Despite my harsh review, I do think this book has a lot of potential, and that it could have come together in a very coherent and beautiful way that I just simply haven’t gotten to yet since I DNF’d it. There were quite a few parts I did enjoy reading, but unfortunately the rest of it was soured by my issues I wrote about above. I feel a bit bad about how harsh my review currently is, but like I stated before I didn’t want anyone else being caught off guard by the potential racism present from the first few pages, like it did to me.

Thank you to Netgalley and Victory Editing for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Why is it so hard to talk about a book you really enjoyed? This book has almost a dozen POVs — which is really the one downside, because so many of them sound exactly alike. If you put them all in one room for a conversation, I don’t think I’d be able to pick even one of them out and say with confidence, yes, this is Character A, or B, or C. And as someone who prefers character driven books, this would normally make it harder for me to enjoy the book, but …

The world building, the magic system, the politics!

You have a nation of people who don’t believe in war taken as slaves —- whose language and culture tell them to go along with it, to give in so that when they die their souls will go to heaven. You have kingdoms of slavers, a Queendom that doesn’t partake, and people of mixed blood whose mothers may not have been willing. It’s loaded and fraught, especially when, among this peaceable people, there arises a leader who is leading her people to war. To end slavery, to kill the slavers, to free her people. And she’d doing it with a heretical magic.

The magic system isn’t explained; there’s no exposition or infodump or one character lecturing another. It’s a low discovery as various characters from various religions and cultures use magic, complain about it, boast about it and fail at it. You have the threat not only of the slave rebellion, but of evil magics, and the cursed Weepers whose blood corrupts and infects — giving you a boarder held, much like GOT, by men cast off from society led by a bastard prince.

That’s not to say this book is derivative, because it’s not. It is very much it’s own thing, it’s owrn world, it’s own religions and magics and cultures and its all so well done. The writing is engaging and effortless, the pace is excellent, spending just enough time in each scene without lingering on unnecessary moments. There are so many breadcrumbs cast about and I’m sure I didn’t get them all, but I cannot wait for the second book in this series to come out.

And to think, this is a debut novel! I want to thank Net Galley and the publisher for letting me read the ARC. I am now going to go preorder a copy of the book for myself.

In this epic tale, the world trembles under the weight of rebellion. Tabin-Af, a former slave, leads the Avenging Army—a force wielding unchecked elemental power. Their mission? To fill the Vault with every life they take. But when the Vault overflows, a cataclysmic Reaping threatens to unleash the dead upon the living.

Pros:
Magic and World-Building: Angelini weaves a captivating world, reminiscent of Game of Thrones, with intricate magic systems and rich politics.
Concept of Widows and Saints: The three mythical Widows and their Avenging Army add depth and intrigue to the story.
Brutal and Violent: The unflinching brutality keeps readers on edge, making it impossible to put down.

Cons:
Pacing: While the plot races forward, some readers may find the pacing a tad uneven.

Overall, Vault of Souls delivers a thrilling fantasy experience, but its minor flaws hold it just shy of perfection. Still, it’s a must-read for fans of Brandon Sanderson and Naomi Novik.

Rating 4.5/5

This is one of the most involved books that I have read in a long time and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have never read anything with so many POVs and while it was a bit hard to keep track in the beginning, but it got a lot easier over time. I definitely wish I would've started this book after my vacation though and not before it cause that definitely threw me off a little bit.

Overall, I really enjoyed this debut adult fantasy novel. It was not at all what I was expecting and I truly love that. I found the world building and the characters to be so interesting, especially how imperfect all of the characters were. There were moments where I loved them and moments when I hated them (except for Rain, I love Rain 24/7).

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes true fantasy books with heavy world building and complex characters that make it difficulty to form an opinion of them. If you're someone who only enjoys "romantasy" books, then I wouldn't recommend this unless you're ready to try a fantasy book with only small romantic aspects.

I cannot wait to see where the rest of this series goes and I feel so incredible lucky to have received an eARC from Sungrazer Publishing and NetGalley!

This was so good! Working to take down the Widow and clear the Vault of Souls, champions come from far and wide to challenge her. This was so intense and a great story!

Josephine Angelini strikes again with Vault of Souls!

A thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish!

'Vault of Souls' is a book containing a world and magic system absolutely interesting. This last one is very well explained within the first 5% of the book, and expanded over the rest of it.
The multiple pov's, while being a lot of characters, really helped understand the political intrigues going on all around the world, as well as build up tension as we see a situation from multiple angles.
The plot was immensely enjoyable and I found myself loving some of the characters.
But there were a couple of points I didn't enjoy as much :
- the age of the characters is unbelievable : they all act and talk as if they were in their late teens/early twenties, when some of them are in their thirties.
- some of the relationships are also unbelievable : they only talked once and then bam! they're having sex and they love each other? I found it a bit rushed.
- speaking of rushed : the ending, and the pace. For almost the entirety of the book, it was alright. But in the last quarter of it, it was all over the place : suddenly months and months had passed, the final battle lasted 10 pages. I felt like we missed some moments that we didn't get to see during those months.
But, to be true, I really enjoyed this book.

"You can love whatever you choose to love.
Even if he takes away the onject of your love,
he can't take your love for it".

I requested this book immediately because of the Starcrossed series, I had the chance to read it a few years ago and it was one of the few series I re-read and that never lost its appeal.
This new book is quite different from what I remember of Starcrossed, but in a refreshing way.
Weirdly the presence of so many characters and so many point of views was not so confusing, every single story was connected to one another helping the reader understand exactly what was happening.
I, of course, looked forward to Rain's and also Sky's point of view, even if I now do understand why she does not have one (I really don't want to spoil anything about the story
but wow...). Rain reminded me a bit of Jon Snow and the Wall from Game of Thrones—not that they’re the same,
but the vibes at the beginning were similar, and I really enjoyed that.
For once, I did care about each character and was genuinely interested in their stories, which kept me hooked. However, I do still have some unanswered questions...

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

~ 4.5⭐️

3.75/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Sungrazer Publishing for the ARC. I have been a fan of Josephine Angelini since I read an ARC for Starcrossed many years ago so this was a full-circle moment for me.
Vault of Souls follows multiple characters throughout Ninelands – former slaves, saints, royalty and assassins, you get it all. The characters are complex and it was great to read about some that I really didn’t like as characters (looking at you Aval) but I was still intrigued and wanted to see what choices they were going to make next.
The magic system and worldbuilding is something I haven’t seen in any book before though I am still not sure I fully understand it after reading the whole book. This might be because it was a bit confusing at the beginning trying to keep up with all the different POVs.
Overall I enjoyed the book and I am excited to see where the story is going. If you like political intrigue and high fantasy similar to Game of Thrones you will definitely enjoy this book.

DNF only because I couldn’t get it on my kindle. I didn’t realize it would be an app only read. I can’t read on my phone. I do still plan to pick this up when it comes out. I got through the first couple of chapters and am very interested in the story. Thank you!

This is a brilliant piece of work full of rich worldbuilding and fully-developed characters. While I think it is too dense for me personally, it does not sway my opinion that Angellini is a incredible writer. A recommendation for all high fantasy fans!

I've been hoping for a new fantasy series with good, novel world-building, and one without so much of the horror elements that seem so popular right now in fantasy series. This book, assuming it is the start of something bigger, may be what I was hoping for. I am a bit confused, still, about the basic magic system.So, the dead go to the Vault of Souls, and that vault powers the magic somehow, but the Vault is full, and must be emptied, so now LOTS of people will die? Which would fill the Vault even more? I hope we get a better explanation in the next book of how this works, cause while I could go along with the characters' assumption THAT it works, I am still not sure how it could. So, for me this is a 4.75 point book, at least on my first reading, but if the world-building fills in the seeming glitches in future books, a reread of this one may be a solid 5 star.. I just wish book 2 was already out so I could start it tomorrow.

This one was a bit different but lagged in commitment to the story. I wanted to know more about the characters themselves and everything else took the forefront.

Adored this epic fantasy book!! Really fast paced and had me invested from the first page. A wide range of characters and povs which was really reminiscent of Sarah j mass characters. The world building was fantastic and adored the characters, I’m excited to see where the series goes next.

Thanks to net galley and the publisher for this arc.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.
I was really pleasantly surprised by this book. It hooked me from the start. It is an epic story with a really interesting and complex worl building and unique magic. We follow many different characters and I they were all very well written and interesting. My favorites were Sky, Rain and J-17. There were some really intriguing concepts of the world building and I am excited to see how the story is going to continue.

Fantasy novel with a number of different inter related leads. Lots of magic, political intrigue, different groups annd interesting characters. Enjoyed it, it possible could have had a tighter edit and been slightly shorter. Thank you to # NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Vault of Souls gives off a Game of Thrones vibes. With tons of magic, frustrating politics and battles that will you nauseas. I really enjoyed diving in the world of the story, engaging in the different POV's with each of the characters. All in all an intriguing story.