Review: Word and Breath by Susannah Noel

Title: Word and Breath
Author: Susannah Noel
Series: Book One in the Wordless Chronicles
Published By:  Self Published (August 27, 2012)
Source: Copy Provided by the Author (in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: New Adult Urban Fantasy
My Rating: 4 Stars!

Goodreads Description:
 Riana has learned how to stay out of trouble. She spends her days studying written texts in the government’s Office of Readers, and she spends her nights taking care of her sick sister. She always—always—follows the rules. Despite her low profile, she has mysteriously become a target. Someone has kidnapped her sister. Someone else is trying to kill her. And someone has sent a Soul-Breather to beguile her out of her secrets.

Her help comes from the mythic leader of an underground rebel movement. A man who used to be her friend. A man who has silently loved her for years. He disappeared from her life without a word, and now he expects her to trust him again.

Then there’s the Soul-Breather, a man who can taste her spirit with only a touch. He makes her feel things she’s never experienced before, but she doesn’t know if the feelings are real. Hired to deceive and betray her, he offers to help her instead.

Without both men, she can’t rescue her sister. And she can’t discover the world-changing knowledge—buried in her memory—that has made her a target in the first place.

My Review: 

   I never know what to expect when I go into a novel written by an author I have never read and know very little about. Especially when after reading the synopsis, I know the book will be different than anything I have probably ever read before.

Sometimes that can be a good thing and sometimes...not so much.

Thankfully this wasn't one of the “not so much”.

This novel definitely had a darker feel to it. It had a slight dystopian/paranormal/mystery vibe. I was pretty sure that I had been right with my feeling after reading the synopsis that this was going to be one of those reads like no other I have read before and I wasn't wrong.

As each page and chapter progressed I felt my self sucked more into the story. I was curious about the setting and the characters. About how unique the world that Riana lived in felt.

It kind of reminded me of a more prehistoric setting than one that is suppose to be set decades in the future.

Most of the world can't read or write and Riana, being one of those few who can, has a job with the government, the Union, to read old letters and books to find any hidden clues. messages or correspondence from the rebels in the underground.

Some how along the way she stumbles upon some things she wasn't suppose to and all hell kind of breaks lose from there.

I love books that can hold their own, that have new ideas and concepts that haven't been done a million times over, something that I am finding is becoming harder and harder to find in the paranormal genre. This book doesn't have any issues with that however, the idea of a Soul Breather is very much original and creative in thought and design.

Someone who could take a small piece of another person's spirit and with it their memories and thoughts, all through a simple touch.

And of course, the Soul Breather (or just Breather as they are commonly called) in this case would be have to be someone irresistible, someone like Mikel.

I really liked Mikel but I have to say, Connor was the one that won me over.

I don't want to give anything away but this was so much more than I thought it would be. It is filled with so many conspiracies and so much is going on that it will be really interesting to see where the author takes the next book in the series.

My only complaint is that I wish there would have been a little more background on their world as far as what led up to where they are today, with most of the population illiterate and the beliefs about love and romance what they are. I am hoping we will get a little more of that in the next one. A better idea and explanation about it all.

I give this one 4 Stars!