SOUL TOLL

Gillespie’s supernatural tale mixes motivational ideas with fantasy elements.

In an office above Boston Harbor, lawyer Ember Brooke often works into the night, following the lead of her parents, James and Cynthia, also hard-driven attorneys. Attempting something different, Ember begins yoga instructor training, but has an unsettling experience during meditation: The vision starts peacefully, but turns dark as her inner light approaches a giant prism on a mountain peak. Setting aside this episode, Ember returns to the work grind, and her parents die in a car accident. James and Cynthia’s business partner, NP Dunn, organizes their “Celebration of Life” ceremony, but Ember senses negative vibes from Dunn. Returning to her parents’ house, Ember is transported via her mom’s yoga mat to Resonance, the mysterious place she saw during her class: “a realm of pure light and creation.” There, she meets Breathers, residents who travel between Resonance and the real world, and confirms her instincts about Dunn—he controls the Prism, making it absorb, not emit, light. Those who’ve tried to challenge Dunn have failed, resulting in a population of mindless Wanderers. A discovery fuels Ember’s determination to reclaim power; with Breathers Jade (a former neurosurgeon) and Derek (a tech product developer), Ember journeys up the mountain and into battle. Gillespie’s flowing narrative propels readers forward, buoyed by numerous engaging dialogues and simple yet smoothly constructed sentences. While readers don’t get much sense of Boston, the world of Resonance is richly imagined and described. There’s a palace made “of shimmering gold cascading from the mountain itself,” venomous shadows burst out of hovering orbs, and there’s mist “curling around the group like unseen hands.” The characters are likable (including Frank, Derek’s dog), but sometimes seem underdeveloped; for example, Ember is horrified by the prospect of infertility as a “Soul Toll,” but seems otherwise unconcerned about her childlessness, and Jade, the former neurosurgeon, is always trying to take everyone’s pulse. Ultimately, Gillespie makes a convincing case that the “woo-woo” ideas Ember initially rejects are worth pursuing.

An imaginative, genre-blurring novel.