Hollow Souls

Hollow Souls is the third book in a trilogy, so we enter an existing world. In short it is our world, but with the additional problem that all those mythical stories are true, more or less.

Kay is a young, talented art student, who has inherited (through no fault of her own) a magic sword and the ability to use her second sight. Along with her grandmother, her house-mate, and her dead house-mate's ghost she lives in a small town, doing the usual small town university student things. Trying to keep down a part-time job, get through her studies, work out her love life, and fight monsters.

The art of storytelling is all about believable characters. If you can believe in the characters, understand their motivations and why they're acting the way they are (however stupid that might be), then the rest of the world just makes sense. In Lawlor's writing the characters are real. They are people, with real people problems, flaws, gifts, and beauty. (Even if some of the people aren't really people.) In this fast-paced book the story keeps rolling, the people make decisions based on what they know (just like everyone does), and no one is really who they seem to be. 

A thoroughly enjoyable read, and one that left me wanting to know what happens next...