Content1's Cravings

Stolen Souls by Nayarit
"V moem mire spasenie prihodit v grobu."

In our world salvation only comes in a coffin.

As Nayarit describes the story in her first chapter – “This is a story about finding salvation when it's least expected, when you might not even know you need it and when the form it comes in isn't what you may have wanted. It is told from a multitude of various points of view because each character is essential to understanding the story line, plot, and interactions with the other characters. It gives it a fun twist, to tell a story from the people who live it, as they live it through each other. Everything happens for a reason, and everyone is twisted together—and through their eyes we see it all unfold. There's A LOT of twists and turns, some that will be expected and some that will come out of left field.

We meet Bella and Alice Swan, whose souls have been stolen—metaphorically—and their rise and fall to their own type of redemption. Bella and Alice are sisters, though not biologically. Both are dancers at the strip club Novolunie. Tragic events of their past thrust them into homelessness when they were just fourteen years old, the same year that they were thrown into the underground world of dirty money, sex, and drugs. They have an unbreakable bond and are each other's only reason for survival. But one night, when a bachelor party of seven shows up at the club, everything changes.

What is the stable? And why would escaping cost Bella and Alice their lives? Will these two stolen souls find a way out of the storm? And when their bond is tested, in a way that neither anticipated, when secrets are revealed that pit sister against sister, will they survive?

Edward Cullen is a recent medical school graduate working in a busy Chicago hospital Emergency Room. He's had a very privileged upbringing, but yet he's dealt with depression and loss - a loss that has haunted him since he was seventeen years old. When he met Tanya Denali in college, he thought that he had found everything he needed, but what he failed to realize was that sometimes you couldn't move on if you didn't face the sins of your past. How will a sin from his past and a sin from his present change him? How will he ever be able to fix the damage he's done and find his own happiness?

Jasper and Rosalie Whitlock moved to Chicago with their family when they were fourteen and twelve, respectively. They have a love-hate relationship that has lasted as long as they can remember. Both live together as roommates in a northern Chicago condo. Jasper is content in his life, but can't help feeling that something is missing. Rosalie has started drifting away from Jasper and he doesn't understand it. What secret is Rosalie hiding from Jasper, and what will happen once it's revealed? When Jasper meets a waitress at the strip club the night of Edward's bachelor party he can't get her out of his mind, but will he be able to sustain a relationship that is doomed from the beginning . . . one that could cost him his life?

Emmett McCarty is a bouncer at the club Novolunie. He's a laid-back guy who was thrown into the Russian Mafia's world of underground sex, dirty money, and drugs by accident. As an outsider, he is given plenty of leeway; but leeway that forces him to stay, no matter what secrets he learns. Will he be able to deal with the weight of that on his conscience? What secrets is he privileged to? And what about the new dancer at the club that he starts dating, what is she hiding from him . . . or what is he hiding from her?”

What follows is a tale so dark and twisted that I struggle at times to keep up with my own theories about what will happen next. This shouldn’t be construed to be a negative, but a positive. I LOVE stories that challenge me, and Nayarit’s little foray into the land of the Russian Mafia fulfills that challenge. So yes, in addition to the characters above, we meet Aro and his henchmen…who own and operate the strip club that Bella and Alice are “possessed” by. Yes, I used the word possessed correctly…for in a world of white slavery our girls have become entangled.

I won’t give away too much of the story, because I really hope that you make the time to go over and give Stolen Souls a read, but I was so captured by a scene in the last chapter that I had to put this up here. Bella has been beaten literally senseless by Demetri for going against the club’s and business’ rules, that in her delusions she is remembering the past, and it is in this chapter that we see what has brought the innocent little girl so low. But what choked me were her remembrances of her father. Charlie soft spot here…

"Baby . . . look at me." My one working eyelid twitched; my blue lips trembled, causing new blood to flow into my mouth from trying to tear them apart. The old blood had fused them together, or they were already cracking from the cold and dehydration.

Somehow I heard myself respond. Whether it was out loud or in my head, I couldn't tell, only that I felt the warm air from my breath trying to claw through the confinement of my lips. "I can't see."

"You can, baby, just look up. I'm right here." And sure enough he was, as beautiful as the day I'd last seen him. For the first time in a long time, my heart breathed a sigh of relief; my whole body lifted, as if finally weightless, and I tingled all over. He hadn't changed at all. There was still a twitch to the right side of his mouth when he talked, almost as if his mustache were a marionette controlled by his words. Those brown eyes—God, I loved those brown eyes—looked at me with all the love in the world, so much like Alice's that you'd swear they were blood related. There was never anything but love in his warm stare; it was like melted brownies on a cold, lazy Sunday.

And I'd been freezing for so long.

What does this story promise you? Good twist and turns, sex (she was nominated for a Golden Lemon award Summer 2010 for Best Kiss), angst, darkness, and suspense. This story is not for the faint hearted, but if you love a good psychological read…go over and read Nayarit’s masterpiece. Tell her I sent you!