3,5 stars rounded up.
Jake and Mariko meet by chance. It turns out they have something in common and this leads us to an investigation and study of several years and people.
The chapters are each stories that interconnect and give us clues as the what is happening in the characters lives.
The success of Old Soul lies in Baker’s excellent craft; her mastery in creating atmospheric, moody and unsettling scenes and sharp descriptions.
I enjoyed the style immensely. 5/5 for that.
I will read this again in a year or so to get back into its story world.

Again, another book for 2025. Old Soul is an artfully written book, dark and scary about a demonic presence called The Tyrant, technically hundreds of years old (but possibly thousands) as it inhabits the souls of people in different time periods.

It’s an artfully written book, but the prose is some too prolix or allusive to be truly scary. However, it is an assemblage of styles and formats that doesn’t quite work. The connections between each chapter flash back and forward, with the odd shiver here and there to keep the cauldron boiling.

I would say the book’s biggest flaw is for such an expansive plot, the book seems to have too much of a butterfly mind to truly succeed. And in the novel’s epilogue, a particularly gory final chapter is retconned. It’s a technically efficient book, but one that is too artfully constructed to be truly scary. It’s published by Penguin on February 6th, 2025 and I thank them for a preview copy. #oldsoul

I started this book yesterday and made it 35% through before going to bed and I had nightmares from some of the imagery that the author created around the Old Soul. I can’t remember the last time that happened in a horror book… occasionally it happens with films but rarely with a book!

What worked for me:
• The cover art is awesome and fits the story beautifully!
• The lore and the backstory of the Old Soul was expertly crafted. It’s a slow burn finding out the lore but learning about the Old Soul is addictive and propulsive read!
• I enjoyed how we traversed the globe across the years and the time periods and places all had a distinct feel!
• Jake was a great leading character and, even though we didn’t spend loads of time with them, many of the other characters had identities and complexities of their own. The characters felt real.
• The author managed to make me feel empathy and pity toward the Old Soul?!

What I wasn’t so keen on:
• Some of the stylistic choices interrupted the flow of the book: no speech punctuation, script-like dialogue in some sections, and ampersands (&) instead of “and” in some sections.
• The book cadence and pacing was slightly off. Sometimes, it felt like we were retreading old ground in each person’s story and, as time went on, they didn’t hold my interest the way that the earlier ones had.
• Many of the sections focused on various forms of art (painting, photography, sculpting) and while some folks might really enjoy this, that’s not a topic that I find personally interesting so I found that a bit slow going at times.
• I found the first half really scary but once my understanding of the Old Soul was filled in more, the book started to feel really sad instead.
• The character of Rosa was insufferable. I think that’s the point but it wasn’t easy to spend so much time with her as a character.
• A bit too much gratuitous explicit sex and urine for me.
• There were a distracting amount of spelling and grammar issues that will likely be corrected in the final proof.

I think there’s a solid story here and I love the lore around the Old Soul but there was enough that detracted from my enjoyment while reading that stopped this from becoming a new favourite.

I was privileged to have my request to read this book accepted through NetGalley. Thank you, Penguin General UK, Fig Tree!