Review: Borrowed Souls by Chelsea Mueller
In Chelsea Mueller’s debut Borrowed Souls, the worldbuilding hook is that you can pawn pieces of your soul to a Soul Charmer for cash, and other people can rent them. Callie Delgado borrows one to break her brother out of jail, and then, surprise, the Soul Charmer wants something back. The premise is so good I bought this on the strength of the elevator pitch alone.
When the soul mechanics are front and center, Borrowed Souls sings. The pawn-shop atmosphere is grimy in exactly the right way, the rules of how soul-borrowing actually works are doled out with care, and Mueller has a real instinct for tension when Callie is doing the dirty work. Callie herself is a likable lead: stubborn, working-class, not quietly suffering for once, thank god. I’d read a whole series about her running scams in this town.
Where it stumbles is the romance subplot. Derek, the Soul Charmer’s enforcer, is fine. He’s a fine love interest. But the chemistry beats feel like checked boxes rather than earned moments, and the book stops periodically to remind us that Callie thinks Derek is hot. We know. We got it. Less is more. The pacing in the back third also goes wobbly; a confrontation that should have landed like a hammer kind of glances off.
That said, this is a debut, and it reads like one in mostly the right ways. There’s clearly a writer here with ideas and a voice, just still figuring out how to balance plot, romance, and worldbuilding in the same bowl. The ending sets up book two without cliffhanger-cheating, which I always appreciate.
For who? Fans of Kim Harrison’s earlier Hollows books, Stacia Kane’s Downside Ghosts series, anyone who likes their UF blue-collar and a little dirty under the fingernails. Not for readers who want polish over potential.
I’m in for the next one.