Sixteen Souls and the case of the missing ghosts

 

I think that this was a book that it came on my radar at some point, but then just dropped right off for whatever reason. Then this Christmas just gone, I got a gift card for a book retailer here in the UK and while I was just browsing their website, I saw it. For context, it’s Sixteen Souls by Rosie Talbot. But when I saw it on the website it was very much one of those, “Oh yeah, that book” moments. Also, before buying this book, I had no idea it was set in York, which was where I went to university. What’s fun (for me, specifically) is that there’s a little map of York City Centre, and I can actually see the street I used to live on.

The blurb says that when sixteen-year-old seer Charlie Frith realises dark forces have taken one of his ghostly friends, he must put aside his reclusive existence to protect them from a fate worse than death. He teams up with Sam Harrow – the new seer in town – and a ragtag group of spirits to unearth the chilling purpose behind the disappearances. As Charlie’s romantic feelings develop for Sam, he will have to risk his life and his heart if he is going to save the afterlife.

Chapter one opens on Charlie walking down The Shambles in York, he mentions that his prostheses on his lower legs are struggling, but since I know The Shambles to be very cobblestone-y, I don’t blame him. He also mentions that since he can see the dead, while to most people they’d just vanish right through them, they can touch (and hurt) him. We find out that there are three types of ghosts: free, tethered, and looped. Charlie thinks tethered are the worst as they’re trapped in a loop of their death. And Charlie and his ghost friends, Heather and Audrey, think that someone is following him. You find out in the second chapter a bit about Charlie’s family, and that Heather, Audrey, and this other ghost kid, Ollie (also this dog, Dante) live in Charlie’s house. In the third chapter you see a little bit at school. You find out that he and this kid, Mitch, kissed on a school trip in France, but Mitch made it weird and acted like it never happened. Mitch is also sort of Charlie’s friend and tells him someone is looking for him. The person who Charlie and his ghost friends think is following him turns up and is wearing a school uniform, so he’s not actually a ghost. Gag-a-roni. That’s basically the first few chapters.

Something I loved was that since I lived in York for a number of years, when places got mentioned, I knew exactly where they were and could picture them in my head. One good example is when Charlie thinks he’s being followed in the first chapter, you get a little list of where he goes, street names and such, and I could follow exactly where he was going. It mentions that he sits at a bus stop, and it was wild that I could picture which exact bus stop was being talked about. Like, I knew where it was and knew exactly what he could see; I was a big fan. I think this might be the first time that I’ve ever actually read a book set somewhere I’ve been so familiar with.

This might also be something that’s more of a me thing, but it’s not uncommon for me to take a few chapters to actually settle into a book, unless a book is like on go mode from the first chapter. That last sentence was just set up for me to say that the first few chapters were nice set up, but I wasn’t in gag mode. It was once Sam turned up in chapter four that was when I started to feel like things were making a move, despite the fact Charlie got stuck in a death loop on chapter three, because when Sam turned up, that’s when you find out that ghosts are going missing and there’s someone called the Shadow Man. And to continue on this track, I think because of how Charlie was as a character, basically wanting to avoid his abilities as much as possible, it took Sam, who is more or less in the same situation (but leaning into it all), for Charlie to actually lean into it himself.

Sort of keeping on from my point I’ve just made, I really liked Charlie and Sam’s dynamic. Like I said, since Charlie is basically a miser, so it was nice that the character opposite him was someone who basically forced him, for lack of better phrasing, out, and to speak up more. Maybe not speak up, but it forced him to (Shea Coulee core) do something, Charlie. To actually take action and not just let life happen to him. I’m kind of glad that was the case, because, and I understand not everyone is the take action kind of person, but I don’t know how much of Charlie I would have been able to put up with if it was just him for the whole book, and I don’t know whether I would have liked him. Sam was the right kind of character that needed to be present alongside Charlie.

However, I would have liked to have seen more of Charlie and Sam together, because, sure they go through something major together, but other than that, I didn’t feel like they knew each other very well by the end of the book. Although, that is actually something that gets a little nod from something Charlie says, which I did appreciate. So, their pairing was fine… but that’s all I can say to it. It was like, “Good for them, thumbs up.” It was the case of by the end of the book, because we didn’t really get to see them get to know each other, I didn’t feel all that invested into whether they actually got together or not.

There’s this event in Normandy that sort of gets dangled over you the whole book, and as it goes on, more and more details, even though small, get revealed. It was one of those where I was like “Okay, are we going to find out what actually happened or…?” And you do eventually find out what it is, but I did think the reveal was a little bit underwhelming, especially for the way Normandy kept getting brought up. It was only until later in the book where you get even more details about it and it’s kind of a slay moment, I can’t lie.

Another gaggy moment is this big reveal (Eve 6000 tease) you get towards the end of the book. It was one of those that wasn’t completely out of the blue, but I also wasn’t expecting. I’m not going to spoil the reveal, but I definitely said, “Oh werk”, to myself when it happened, and it did make me want to read on. On the flipside to that though, the middle of the book is where I’d say this book was at its weakest. The end was definitely all thrusters on slay mode, but there were definitely moments in the middle where I was putting the book down and content that I could pick it up to continue another day, like I didn’t need to keep reading on.

There were no major issues I had with this book. I think my biggest issue was that I wanted more from Charlie and Sam’s relationship. But it was more just little things that popped up every now and then. Things like when Charlie and Sam kiss and Charlie mentions he sees “a TikTok compilation of cute couple moments”, or sometimes I’d think that things people said that were meant to be Yorkshire vernacular but didn’t sound like something someone from Yorkshire would say. It was little things like this that made me feel like I’m riding a bike somewhere, it’s a lovely day, the weather is perfect, but I occasionally get hit in the face by bugs, so I can never get properly immersed for too long, because there was always some little thing that dragged me out of me.

And that’s how I ultimately felt about the book. I enjoyed it overall. It was good, and its final act was very much Chase Radio, bitch welcome on air, go mode vibes. It was just those little things that popped up occasionally that stopped me from fully getting into it from time to time.

Okay, bye!