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cella_books 's review for:
Soul Searching
by Lyla Sage
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for this eARC!
I was unbelievably excited to receive this ARC because I love the Rebel Blue Ranch series so much! And let me tell you, Lyla Sage has done it again. This book was so adorable and also a really lovely exploration of life and death and the meaning of them both. It had the heartwarming message that the meaning of life is what you make of it and death isn’t the end, but a new beginning. Sage also played with the idea of fate a little bit, and even though I personally am not really a fate gal, it worked very well with what I came to know of the characters and their world.
On to the characters. I LOVE Brady. He's such a cutie. If I've learned anything from this book, it's that I absolutely need more nerd content in what I read because I was eating that ish up. I deeply appreciated all of Brady’s Lord of the Rings analogies (and his withheld joke about simply walking into Mordor) and having a horse named Shadowfax was the PERFECT bonding thing and I’m ashamed I hadn’t even thought about the possibility. Sage wrote the perfect “elevated normal guy,” by which I mean, he’s such a normal dude but he’s also the perfect gentleman and is genuinely very nice and sincere. Last note about Brady, he absolutely shocked me with his bedroom behavior. I was shocked. Love that for him though (or for Collins I guess).
I really liked Collins as an FMC. Also, love that her name is her mom’s maiden name because me too! So that was fun for me. Her journey with the ghosts was a very nice complete arc. I liked the way it was tied off loads. It was very fun to read about a character with the abilities she has and explore the way it impacted her childhood, especially living in a small town with so much history. It was also wonderful to read that in the FMC of a romance novel where it was simply a fact of life and not used to create any kind of weird tension. It was a helpful push for their relationship but, I think that it would still be strong if you removed that aspect.
I liked their relationship a lot as well. I was super glad we didn't go for a miscommunication thing in the third act. It would’ve been very easy with everything happening in the third act, so thank you Lyla Sage for steering clear of that trope. The way Sage chose to further their relationship was perfect the the kind of story this was, and allowed for a delightful amount of both banter and tender/intimate moments. I loved getting to know Sweetwater Peak and Collins with Brady and see Brady and Sweetwater through Collins’s eyes.
Speaking of Sweetwater Peak. Loved it. Cute asf town and Lyla has
once again nailed the small town vibe and absolutely made me fall in
love with it. There’s a balance of how much of background characters and adjacent setting one can show before it gets overwhelming or distracts from the main plot, but I think Sage does it very well.
Lastly, I love the Cartwrights. I can’t wait to see more of Joanie and Dex in the next one, they’re so wholesome. All of the family interactions we saw in this were so freaking cute; I love this little family. Also, I thought the exploration of Clarke and Collins’s relationship was a nice layer to the story and added a helpful amount of complexity to Collins’s journey and the arc with Toades.
I only have one spoilery thing to say, so to avoid marking the whole review as containing spoilers, I’m putting it down here. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to know.
⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️
As much as everything at the end w/ Amos and Cam was slightly fan service-y, I ATE. IT. UP. I was loving Amos and Boone the whole time, it was super cute to see that and hear bits about everyone we know and love from Boone’s perspective. It also felt very tonally correct for the Meadowlark crew to help our new Sweetwater friends; small towns stick together and all that. I loved all of that very much.
⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️
All of this to say, this book was great. I had high expectations and they were most certainly met. A wonderful book to pick up whether you have read Done and Dusted five times or have never heard of Lyla Sage.
I was unbelievably excited to receive this ARC because I love the Rebel Blue Ranch series so much! And let me tell you, Lyla Sage has done it again. This book was so adorable and also a really lovely exploration of life and death and the meaning of them both. It had the heartwarming message that the meaning of life is what you make of it and death isn’t the end, but a new beginning. Sage also played with the idea of fate a little bit, and even though I personally am not really a fate gal, it worked very well with what I came to know of the characters and their world.
On to the characters. I LOVE Brady. He's such a cutie. If I've learned anything from this book, it's that I absolutely need more nerd content in what I read because I was eating that ish up. I deeply appreciated all of Brady’s Lord of the Rings analogies (and his withheld joke about simply walking into Mordor) and having a horse named Shadowfax was the PERFECT bonding thing and I’m ashamed I hadn’t even thought about the possibility. Sage wrote the perfect “elevated normal guy,” by which I mean, he’s such a normal dude but he’s also the perfect gentleman and is genuinely very nice and sincere. Last note about Brady, he absolutely shocked me with his bedroom behavior. I was shocked. Love that for him though (or for Collins I guess).
I really liked Collins as an FMC. Also, love that her name is her mom’s maiden name because me too! So that was fun for me. Her journey with the ghosts was a very nice complete arc. I liked the way it was tied off loads. It was very fun to read about a character with the abilities she has and explore the way it impacted her childhood, especially living in a small town with so much history. It was also wonderful to read that in the FMC of a romance novel where it was simply a fact of life and not used to create any kind of weird tension. It was a helpful push for their relationship but, I think that it would still be strong if you removed that aspect.
I liked their relationship a lot as well. I was super glad we didn't go for a miscommunication thing in the third act. It would’ve been very easy with everything happening in the third act, so thank you Lyla Sage for steering clear of that trope. The way Sage chose to further their relationship was perfect the the kind of story this was, and allowed for a delightful amount of both banter and tender/intimate moments. I loved getting to know Sweetwater Peak and Collins with Brady and see Brady and Sweetwater through Collins’s eyes.
Speaking of Sweetwater Peak. Loved it. Cute asf town and Lyla has
once again nailed the small town vibe and absolutely made me fall in
love with it. There’s a balance of how much of background characters and adjacent setting one can show before it gets overwhelming or distracts from the main plot, but I think Sage does it very well.
Lastly, I love the Cartwrights. I can’t wait to see more of Joanie and Dex in the next one, they’re so wholesome. All of the family interactions we saw in this were so freaking cute; I love this little family. Also, I thought the exploration of Clarke and Collins’s relationship was a nice layer to the story and added a helpful amount of complexity to Collins’s journey and the arc with Toades.
I only have one spoilery thing to say, so to avoid marking the whole review as containing spoilers, I’m putting it down here. Avert your eyes if you don’t want to know.
⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️
As much as everything at the end w/ Amos and Cam was slightly fan service-y, I ATE. IT. UP. I was loving Amos and Boone the whole time, it was super cute to see that and hear bits about everyone we know and love from Boone’s perspective. It also felt very tonally correct for the Meadowlark crew to help our new Sweetwater friends; small towns stick together and all that. I loved all of that very much.
⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️‼️⚠️
All of this to say, this book was great. I had high expectations and they were most certainly met. A wonderful book to pick up whether you have read Done and Dusted five times or have never heard of Lyla Sage.