Sanctum of the Soul: It’s difficult to recommend this series

Sanctum of the Soul by Kel Kade

I’ve been up and down on Kel Kade’s SHROUD OF PROPHECY series, with book one, Fate of the Fallen, striking me as enjoyable though with a number of issues. The sequel, Destiny of the Dead, took a small turn downward for me, though it had its strengths. Unfortunately, my experience with book three, Sanctum of the Soul, was closer to Destiny than Fate, making it difficult to recommend the series. That said, it does have its positives as noted, so it’s not a hard pass sort of non-recommendation; you might consider giving it a shot and seeing if you might have a more positive response.

Sanctum of the Soul continues Aaslo’s attempt to save his world from the god of death, who is trying to become the dominant one amongst the gods. In this concluding novel, Aaslo is using the magical pathways to hop from city to city, trying to recruit more soldiers to his army. Parallel to his recruitment, he’s also questing after the bodies of powerful ancient mages in order to imbue them with power that will semi-resurrect them and bind them to his service, though the mages are so strong and so amoral that whether he can fully control them is questionable. Needs must, as they say though. Meanwhile, the Reaper Myropa, forced to obey the gods, does what she can to help Aaslo, for reasons that remain a mystery to him and make him suspicious of her. Myropa also has her own journey into power and self-knowledge, nudged along by one the gods opposing the god of death. Aaslo is also both opposed and aided by magi Sedi, whose motives are unclear both to Aaslo and herself.

To start with those positives, Aaslo remains a solidly engaging character, reluctantly thrust into the role of the Chosen One after his friend and actual Chosen One Mathias was killed (though Aaslo carries around his talk and converses regularly with him). He does a mostly good job of leading his group, but one always gets the sense he’s in things over his head, making him relatable throughout. And the relationship/conversations between him and Mathias are both warm and generally humorous, if at times that humor can seem forced. The pantheon and world of the gods is also intriguing, though it never felt fully realized to me such that I never had a good grasp of differentiated characters, motivations, powers. Etc.

Other issues that marred my reading experience included pacing (this one felt more than its length as well as a bit repetitive, leading me to consider stopping more than once), a general thinness of characterization, a meandering structure that felt somewhat random, some too-convenient plotting, characters coming across as a bit too juvenile, and the wearying number of times characters didn’t realize Aaslo was talking to people they couldn’t see. While many of those issues were present from the beginning of the trilogy, book one balanced them out with stronger moments. That balance began to tip in the wrong direction for me in book two and continued that movement unfortunately here in Sanctum of the Soul.