The author is good at writing but, sadly, the plot is not as pronounced that I would have liked. It's more philosophical and a bit down looking on other people to make sense. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I really wanted to like this book, but sadly that didn't happen. In the beginning, it felt like a self-reflection book, which was interesting for me. But as I continued to read I started to really dislike the Narrator of the Novella the Soulmatcher. What a holier-than-thou person looking down on the characters and their experiences. During the philosophical parts of this book the narrator was insulting my intelligence, they kept saying how "the reader doesn't understand but you will." I think the author was trying to be clever but it failed.

Don't get me wrong the characters' interactions were interesting and the story flowed okay, but the Soulmatcher was just an annoyance to me that I couldn't get past.

For me the book would have been better had it spent more time on the characters life and maybe some little life lessons. I also didn't see the "romance" side of things. Sure there was some but it definitely wouldn't be classed as a romance. There were also some mistakes in the way the book was written, things mentioning my IQ as the reader, I for one do not feel smarter after reading this book.

I'll keep an eye out for other books by this author because it wasn't a horrible book, but it simply wasn't a great one either.

Thank you to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't tell you what this was supposed to be about. Apparently this is a romance, and there is some, I suppose. But the author keeps stopping the story to try and say something philosophical about time and life itself. Both the romance and philosophy fails here.

During the more philosophical parts, it just sounded insulting to the reader's intelligence. It kept talking about how the reader doesn't understand, but you will, etc. They tried to be clever and deep and it just didn't work.

I don't know if this was an honest mistake, maybe the author's first language is something other than English, but at one point it says "your IQ will decrease, and you'll be smarter", among other errors I noticed.

I hope the author continues to write and improve, so they can make better stories

I am conflicted to say how much I want to like this book. Perhaps I am not the target audience, but this read very much like a self reflection book at first, which was very exciting, however, the more I read, the more I quite disliked the Soulmatcher/ narrator of the Novella. Giving a more 'holier then thou' feeling looking down on the characters and their experiences. The characters and their interactions themselves were quite interesting and their story flowed and mended very well, which made for a great read. Overall the Novella was enjoyable, and I wish we had focused more on the characters with some minor life lessons here and there that were more pertaining to what the characters experienced than just " this is not how life should be, it should be this" generalization.

I received an ARC of this story from NetGalley for an honost review. Thank you.

Because the first half of this story is written in third person it was kind of difficult to get a connection to the caracters at first. The story is not lineair and moves back and forth trough time and change of location.

Because this story is simple the sequensing of events and the narration of thea made it interesting. I would have prevered her to have been talking to me in stead of random ficticious people. I think it would have been more intemate and engaged me more🤔

The story encompaces a periode from a daring escape over the wall from occupied Germanen to 2 generation later.

It speeks about life, love and living. From the second part of the story we get some more 1st person storyline wich engaged me more with the story.

I liked the part were there striving to chase there dreams in making a difference in the world.

Thea gives away a part of the future that they acheave there goal. I didn't need that. For i believe one of the story lines and would like to expend on it.

The learning is not in the win or the loss but in the draw. The living is not in the succes or failure but in the act of striving and existing.

I liked the story and will look fore more stories from the author.

Honestly not sure how to give feedback on this. I found the narrator interesting at the beginning, but then too preachy and overwhelming, not adding to the story. Main character story line, I enjoyed for what it was.
I found a few typos/errors as well.

The Soulmatcher by Francis J Shaw is a story narrated by the one and only soulmachter Althea the story changes timelines many times as well as having a lot of characters and IDK what kind of entity the soulmatcher is she tends to ask a lot of philosophical questions as the story jumps from England to Germany back to England. I think the story would’ve been much better had not been so many soul seeking questions and time jumps but altogether it was an interesting quick read, but for the most part I did enjoy. #NetGalley, #FrancisJShaw, #TheSoulMatcher,#BooksGoSocial,

I really feel stuck trying to figure out how to give a review on this Novella.
It is well written, and despite the time bouncing backwards and forwards, the plot flows well. It’s not hard to follow despite the narrator calling it out as if it is.
The characters are interesting, albeit, two dimensional at best due to the length of the novel. You really don’t get to understand their inner workings or motivations. You feel like you’re watching them on a screen and not sinking into the world.

My main issue is that of the narrator, Thea. She is painfully preachy and more likely to have you rolling your eyes than nodding along. Even though it is a female character, it is very obviously written by a man who loves philosophy. Women just don’t talk the way the narrator talks.
All the jokes about how the famous philosophers are men because women already knew it all hit home in this book.

I honestly feel like if you got rid of the entire narrator, the book would be stronger. You read fantasy to escape not to be preached at.
Fantasy is full of lessons that don’t need to be stated outright as they are here.