Underneath a lot of the attempts at philosophical pining, I do believe there is a good story here of 2 people from very difficult backgrounds finding one another because they are fated by a higher power to do so. Unfortunately, because the story's narrator switches between telling the story and then waxing poetic for pages and pages, that story gets oversimplified and muddled. I would have really liked to know Artur and Tuppence more than the shallow characters they are written as, and that could have absolutely been done in this length of novella had there not been the narrator's annoying side chatter.

I was intrigued by the premise of The Soulmatcher, but ultimately I felt that the execution left a fair bit to be desired. Thea is the Soulmatcher/narrator, and she comes off as quite condescending, which prevented me from enjoying the book as much as I thought I would. The book does pose some interesting philosophical questions about love and life, but I felt like the characters were underdeveloped.

The book was confusing to keep up with the characters and overall not that fluid of a read to enjoy.

I received this ARC through NetGalley for my honest opinion.

I really wanted to like this book because I loved the idea of it.
When I started reading it, not so much. Rather not as much as I would have liked to that is.

I was not crazy about our narrator. The way she told the story was a bit much for me at times.
I really did enjoy the other stories within and how they melded together and wish I had more information about that. I wish the story was more about those characters and less about the narrator confusing us with her flightiness.

I really did not like the narrator for this book. It was a condescending read where I, as the reader just felt insulted most of the time. There was also very little romance and a few errors in terms of the writing. Some people might like the style of writing that makes them feel like they are being spoken down to, but I am not one of those people.

Interesting and intriguing story , Thea is a soul matcher who tells a tale of love and fate , inspiring and thought provoking .

This was such an interesting read. I will admit I was a little confused as the formatting seemed to change throughout the ebook. Aside from that, I liked the story. It’s so true that you never know why things have to happen and things aren’t always cause and effect. I appreciated the way we became so invested in Tuppence and Artur after learning their individual backstories. I absolutely loved the end where they were actually souls that made a deal to find each other. I totally believe in soul contracts. My only critique is that I didn’t not like the narrator (soulmatcher) speaking directly to the reader. It took me out of the story. I think it would be fine to do the beginning and end, but there were so many times throughout. I wanted to skip those parts.

I really wanted to like this book but it didn't make any sense. The romance was barely there and the philosophy was just condescension telling me I will know. I am not really sure what I was going to know or learn. At 112 it was to long and that is sad.

This was a cute quick read, took about 45 minutes to read the whole thing. Gives you alot to think about when it jumps from storylines!

Despite being touted as a romance story, it was severely lacking. And the likability of the narrator, Thea, the soulmatcher, was a struggle the find. Insulting the reader's intelligence isn't the best way to get them engaged. Also, I'd prefer to be addressed directly in the narrators stream of consciousness way of talking instead of to individuals only they can see. It would have made me feel more involved in the story instead of an outsider looking in.
The only upside is that it was 112 pages long...

When I read the description of this book, I automatically wanted to read it. My expectations of the book were high, and unfortunately they were not met. I liked the way of writing, changes of places and time, since I think this gave a good dynamic to the book and an opportunity for us readers to try to connect the dots of different stories contained between book covers. I missed more character development and I have a feeling some parts of the story were not well explained or were not deepened to the level I expected. This could be because of the book's length, but, I still think that better explanations and deeper connections would make this book more enjoyable to the readers.

Thank you NetGalley, publisher and author for sending me this book for review consideration.
#NetGalley #TheSoulMatcher

Very grateful to get to read this in advance of release - it wasn't quite my cup of tea but could see this being just right for a coming of age teen or young adult especially if traveling to the UK/Europe soon!

I went into this book with curiosity, but it turned out to be a frustrating experience. The premise seemed intriguing—a blend of philosophy and romance—but neither aspect was executed well.

The philosophical parts came across as condescending, with the narrator constantly claiming, “You don’t understand, but you will.” Instead of being thought-provoking, these moments felt insulting to the reader’s intelligence. The narrator, the so-called “Soulmatcher,” was particularly unbearable, looking down on the characters and their experiences with a holier-than-thou attitude.

The romance was barely there, and when it did appear, it was lackluster and underwhelming. The story had potential, but it spent too much time trying to be profound rather than focusing on the characters’ lives and their development.

There were also several errors in the text, including a line about how “your IQ will decrease, and you’ll be smarter,” which didn’t make any sense. This kind of careless writing made it hard to take the book seriously.

While the flow of the story was okay and some interactions between the characters were interesting, the overall experience was disappointing. I hope the author continues to write and improve because the potential is there, but this book simply didn’t work for me. That's why I'm giving it 1 aka 0 ⭐️.

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,