Enjoyed reading this but was totally blown away as I read it Read it you ll like it Don t know if there are any of them to follow All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1 This book was a pleasant surprise I couldn t put it down I like the whole secret society and hidden forces The story unfolds with many twists and turns At the end everything comes together I can t wait for the second one All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1 This first book in the Gatehouse Thriller series was a compelling read that kept me fascinated from page one and never let up until its end Not very familiar at all with assassin thrillers the Bourne books and movies and the film The Professional aka L on my only other experience with the genre I wasn t sure what to expect and wasn t even certain the story would be my cup of tea despite that I ve really enjoyed other novels by author Karin Kaufman That said All Souls not only started off with a gripping mystery it remained engrossing every step of the way and that it did so is significant at least to me since generally I m not really a reader of violent action adventure or secret society conspiracy thrillers mainly because I tend to lean pretty heavily toward pacifist beliefs and frequently have trouble relating to characters who don t have severe moral qualms about killing for any reason whether or not they do choose to kill for whatever reason I need to see that they are experiencing major conflict over doing so That I did enjoy this story so much and even was able to sympathize with its characters then is a testament to the extraordinary skill of the author Not only was the writing pitch perfect in the flow of the plot whether in breakneck speed high action scenes or in those moments of personal character interaction the development of the main characters and the insight into some of their motivations was well done enough to make me at least want to understand them better even when I didn t agree with their views In addition I sensed some underlying symbolism in the behavior and organizing of the disparate killers known as Sacks that drew me into the story even Whether or not this perceived symbolism was really there it certainly captured my interest for reading the next book in the series. All souls examination The reason for my four star rating instead of the five that the writing merits and then some IMO is that to really connect with the main characters on a deeper level rather than only want to understand their motivations and to have sympathy for their situation I would have needed a little development and explanation of the antagonists in the novel the Sack characters While there are hints that maybe they aren t acting on evil impulses for the sake of simply enjoying evil this isn t that well developed in this first book and the Sack character who most suggested the idea that the motivation wasn t originally evil for evil s sake later makes it seem like that suggestion was a lie Because of that the Sacks sometimes came across to me as less than human personifications of evil rather than multi dimensional fallible and misled human beings who descend into evil acts the way most human beings usually do that is through the self delusion of justifying one s immoral unethical behavior based on faulty concepts of personal freedom justice over perceived wrongs etc The story s end does readdress this question in a serious way but because the antagonists seem to be engaging in evil for evil s sake through most of the novel and the protagonists seem to be basing their own moral decisions on that view of the Sacks motivation it can make the main characters appear to see things in a too pure good stands against pure evil way without consideration that the flawed humanity in the Sacks is a terrible extension of tendencies within themselves without a there but for the grace of God go I understanding of others that is Also while the main character Jane Piper did have my sympathy for the horrors she personally experienced and because she often did seem to be the character who most experienced unease over whether killing was truly the answer occasionally her justifications could be rather harshly judgmental of those who question violence as a response to even unremitting evil Knowing that human beings can often be self contradictory in this manner made her an extremely realistic character but one of her statements in particular suggesting that those who express moral qualms about killing are only hypocrites who won t admit that they re really fine with killing as long as they don t have to do it themselves or don t have to be made aware that it s going on was off putting An MC voicing this kind of blanket prejudice against anyone who expresses concerns about using violence especially killing to defeat evil didn t make her an unsympathetic character to me but I admit that I do have personal issues with people characters who presume that those who disagree with them on a given subject don t have any well thought out or good reasons for their concerns and so therefore must be being hypocritical A far less likable and less sympathetic character in the Bourne books voiced a similar prejudice and though Jane s reasons for feeling this way in All Souls are much understandable it had the same effect on me in both books as it does in life judging a person s actions is one thing presuming to think one knows another s every motivation and even their thoughts and feelings on an idea is another so I m hoping for even insight into Jane s character for better understanding of her in future books of the series. All souls trilogy book 2 Overall however this incredibly well written thriller with its fascinating mystery interesting and realistic main characters and its offering to reflect on questions of good and evil how to respond to evil and the possibility of redemption from even the farthest fall from good make for an excellent read The author s knowledge and research are evident in the story s craftsmanship and her skills as a writer as regards plot pacing and character development are very evident I m very much looking forward to continuing with the series to see where she goes with the ideas presented and the characters introduced in All Souls and I highly recommend the novel to thriller suspense and action adventure fans especially those who like a story that offers a number of important ideas for reflection All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1 4. All souls okc 5 stars and I m only knocking off a bit because I thought it was Christian fiction and I know some Christian readers might have issues with the language This novel reads like one of today s top thrillers like Clive Cussler or Brad Thor I could NOT put it down bit off all my nails over the course of three days reading it and will be hunting down of Kaufman s books I love the strong yet still emotionally alive main character Jane Her cool balanced boss reminds me a lot of the Michael Nikita relationship in the 90s show for some reason The book was action packed but not character deficient I felt I m definitely a new Kaufman fan All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1 Full disclosure at the outset Karin Kaufman the author of All Souls is a Goodreads friend of mine and I was one of ten people to claim a free e copy in exchange for the promise of a good or bad review As yet no print version is available though there will be one eventually I rarely read e books and never as a substitute for print so I promised Karin that if I liked the book I d buy a print copy whenever it comes available As my rating indicates that s one sale that s now in the bag Through much of my reading I was ready to give it a solid three stars and the super strong ending commanded a fourth. EPub All soulshine Why not five stars Well the premise here is that humanity is secretly menaced by a nameless worldwide society of thrill killers who make the notorious Thugees look like philanthropists and who are recruited from all walks of normal society in which they blend anonymously Their Gatehouse adversaries call them Sacks short for sack of dung though they use an earthier synonym The society has by Gatehouse estimates well over a million members and has been around for at least 100 years according to one passing comment it s organized in hierarchial ranks with odd names members of each rank supposedly don t cooperate very closely and hate the other ranks but they take orders from the higher ranks and want to advance into them and has a culture of strange behaviors like the members taking bizarre secret names and tattooing them on their bodies yet it has apparently no belief system or ideology except conscious embrace of evil and chaotic destruction for its own sake They keep their existence secret from society at large and apparently have no agenda beyond picking off as many individual innocents as they can without being exposed The U. All souls book 6 S knows about them and preserves their secrecy but combats them with an unofficial arm the Gatehouse organization which commands a small army of hunters who periodically assassinate individual identified Sacks as opposed to say dealing with them through law enforcement and the court system at the direction of go betweens called porters Nathan is Jane s porter Early on Jane reflects that if she stood up and shouted all of the above information in public nobody would believe her anyway She thinks apparently that the general populace might find this premise far fetched Readers might have the same difficulty The idea is definitely original but it has credibility problems in spades IMO it s rather hard to suspend disbelief here on a number of grounds not the least of which is that while many people do embrace very evil agendas including the killing of the innocent hardly any do so while openly and consciously telling themselves that they re doing so The vast majority of them have to have some ideological belief system that justifies the evil by telling them that in reality it s good or for a greater good I may be naive but I don t think Sack recruitment on the basis of embrace homicidal evil just because it s fun would gain as many adherents as they have here And while I see how Sacks have an interest in keeping their activities secret I don t buy the explanation that the government tacitly agrees to cooperate in letting them do so lest they unleash an even greater blood bath if they re forced into the open Credibility is also strained by some individual characters motivations Why Sack hating Kath would join the Sacks after they killed her child and why both Kath and the Sack who murdered Jane s sister would spare Jane in violation of Sack orders and policy is never explained to my satisfaction And as a parent of multiple daughters myself I can t believe both Jane s parents would unfairly disown and reject her for failing to protect her sister when any idiot can see that she would have if she could Granted action heroine fiction writers often do stretch strict credibility a bit in their premises and sometimes the tone is sufficiently tongue in cheek that the reader doesn t take such lapses very seriously Here though the tone is pretty serious and where on a scale of one to ten for credibility action heroine yarns I ve read often cluster around 1 5 this one is of a minus 75 There s also a bad language issue here in the form of a lot of profanity and obscenity Granted most people do cuss some especially under stress as is noted here except for those who have thought out reasons not to than say that their grandmother doesn t like it and even these have human fallibility and impulsiveness So there are arguable reasons for writers choosing to reflect this by explicitly quoting the bad language in dialogue I don t have any blanket objection to this in principle though I don t do it myself And I don t feel that Kaufman is deliberately trying to push the envelope to influence readers to talk that way or that she uses the device gratuitously Not all her characters use that kind of language for instance and Jane only uses the f word when she s VERY angry and stressed so it s a clue to her emotional state But for me the cumulative amount of bad language was enough of a turn off to cost the book a star That s just a matter of my honest personal subjective aesthetic reaction in terms of how I liked the book not a second guessing of the legitimacy of the author s technique Many readers wouldn t have any problem with it All of that said it s all the a credit to Kaufman s ability as a writer and the strength of this book that she took that kind of premise and made a four star book out of it Her command of language to do with it what she wants to do is impeccable professional literate with the kind of painstaking craftsmanship that makes the flow of words seem easy A Colorado native she sets her tale in her home state and the neighboring parts of New Mexico and Wyoming she s obviously at home on the ground with real locations and a sense of place The plotting is very taut in terms of time compressed into just seven days Oct 27 Nov 2 All Souls Day Jane s a first person narrator for all but the first chapter and hers is the perfect voice for the tale Even if I didn t always like her language I never had any problem liking her she s a genuinely good person in a situation that s lousy to begin with and quickly proceeds to get a lot worse a woman who s kept her humanity and moral compass through a blast furnace of trials The other major characters are well drawn as well Gripping doesn t begin to describe this book it grabs you and pulls you along from the starting gate and I d have read it in one sitting if I could have That s not to say it s all action but the waiting intervals in between are as tense as harp strings When action comes it comes quick realistic and bloody with a high body count by the time you get to the last page Kaufman knows her guns and she writes action scenes clearly and credibly If you like your heroines butt kicking Jane won t disappoint she s as lethal a woman as you ll ever meet in fiction and without any contradiction as compassionate a person as you d be apt to meet too Her colleagues tend to be as combat skilled as she is and some of their adversaries are extremely deadly and crafty as well Generally speaking in real life I have a problem with governments violating their own laws by sponsoring programs for extrajudicial killing But I don t hold operatives like Jane and Nathan responsible for acting in the situational context they re in They don t make the policy all they can do is protect the innocent and take care to kill only the guilty And Kaufman s plot is a roller coaster of surprises. All souls trilogy pdf Ultimately though this is than a novel of slam bang action It becomes a serious exploration of the possibilities of moral conversion from great evil to willing embrace of good of guilt and atonement of the limits of forgiveness in short the kinds of serious moral questions that occupy the great literature of the Western tradition underneath the smell of gunsmoke and blood we re in the same realm here that Hawthorne and Dostoevsky Undset and Graham Greene have ventured before Jane and her colleagues are secular people for the most part and approach these questions in the secular terms of human forgiveness and atonement but of course these are also the concerns that lie at the heart of the Christian faith Since this is a series opener it ll be interesting to see where Karin takes this theme in future books And I ll find out I m hooked for the duration and not one bit abashed about it Quick note for romance phobic readers there s not only no sex here but no romance Gatehouse doesn t encourage its operatives to marry and doesn t allow them to stay in the organization if they conceive a child If Jane ever decides that she wants a man in her life I think that she deserves a good one and that she d be a great wife But for now she s content to be alone and doesn t obsess about men and sex All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1 Amazingly well written and engrossing however thrillers are not really my thing. Deborah harkness all souls book 6 However I would have picked up a sequel if there was one Instead I bought one of the author s cozy mysteries All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1

All Souls (Gatehouse Thriller #1) By K.T. Kaufman

English

236

Kindle Edition

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After watching her sister die at the hands of a vicious killer Jane Piper receives an invitation to join Gatehouse the secret organization that stands between life as we know it and the most ruthless killers the world has ever known At twenty eight she becomes Gatehouse s youngest assassin a hunter assigned to Nathan Tennant a man with mysterious ties to the organization. All soulsilver event pokemon Now two years later things are changing at a breathtaking pace From New Mexico to Montana these killers Sacks are slaughtering innocents as never before Most disturbing of all for the first time they re cooperating with one another They have a mission. All soul society captains In a desperate race to uncover that mission Jane must draw on every skill she possesses and battle those whose sole purpose is to stop her from discovering the truth Targeted for elimination by an unknown figure and facing betrayal at the hands of those whose loyalty she never doubted she begins to question her most deeply held beliefs The truth will change her life forever All Souls Gatehouse Thriller 1.

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Evil personified in this one