She leaves misery, destruction, and confusion in her wake. The friends and family of her victims are haunted by her, ruing the day she came into their lives. Susan Barker’s intense new novel, Old Soul, is a kaleidoscope of emotions. We follow a few of those friends and family as they piece together what happened to their loved ones years and decades earlier and, more importantly, who it was who took such passionate artists away from them.
It’s a marvel that any of these people scattered in her wake ever figured out that there was someone (something?) out there responsible for their losses. Jake and Mariko met entirely by chance when they both miss their plane. When they talk, they learn that they both lost a loved one in bizarre circumstances. It’s the details—complaints about swapped organs, a mysterious woman who later vanished—that clue them in. Without those details, the deaths could be dismissed as drug addiction and overdose or a mental breakdown that turned deadly. The strange death of Mariko’s brother leads Jake to another person, then another, and another, who had a friend or relative die after meeting and falling under the sway of an unknown woman. Without those details, the deaths could be dismissed as drug addiction and overdose or a mental breakdown that turned deadly.
Jake’s investigation is interwoven with the testimonies of other people who lost someone to the woman Jake knows as Marion. We also meet Marion herself, though she is going by yet another name now, as she coaxes a young would-be influencer deeper into the New Mexico desert. If the testimonies weren’t enough to convince us that Jake is right and that Marion is a very dangerous person, the woman’s chapters definitely will. Her chapters slowly reveal the mystery at the heart of her actions, a mystery that has kept her young and unchanging for decades (as far as Jake knows).
I wish Old Soul had come into my hands in October as it is one of the most harrowing books I’ve read; it would’ve been a perfect Halloween read. It also has something that I crave in fiction: originality. Old Soul has elements of horror and psychological thriller and historical fiction, blended together like nothing I’ve seen before. Because it defies genre, I had no idea where Barker was taking me. I raced through the pages, following clues along with Jake. I had no outside knowledge to pull on to get ahead of Jake or predict how the book would end. Old Soul left me breathless, as if I’d been literally running along with Jake, instead of just metaphorically. This book is absolutely outstanding.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.