It doesn’t take much to make Alice angry, and lining up at her new school registration, only to be told they hadn’t received her enrollment is like a red rag to a very cranky bull. It’s not the start Alice wanted at Carvell College of Arts and she’s still angry when she meets her room mate Lottie.

Lottie is unsure about everything when she arrives at Carvell. Feeling like an imposter, she is on tenterhooks waiting for someone to send her home. Her parents will have her home in an instant if she chose, as they are nervous too about her enrollment in this famous school.

Unfortunately the fame isn’t for academic excellence or sporting prowess – Carvell College is the scene of not one but several student and staff deaths. Now after 10 years being closed, Carvell is open again for new students. Lottie has a personal stake in attending. Her parents knew one of the victims, and with her fascination in true crime, Lottie is determined to know what happened. She has no illusions of being a super sleuth and outwitting all the police investigations before, but knows she won’t found out anything unless she is on the grounds of Carvell for the next year.

As room mates, Lottie and Alice take a while to connect in anything but barbs or ghosting each other. It’s not until they must admit to the other that something very strange is happening to them. Alice found a book that promises to help with her anger, and Lottie keeps waking up in strange places in the middle of the night.

Is the contents of the book only the ravings of a madman? Has Lottie only begun sleepwalking because of the strange surroundings and her own misgivings about herself?

The more they confide in each other, the more that is revealed. Something age-old, connecting the past to the present has a grip on this once-a-convent college. More will die, but at the hands of who? What Lottie, Alice and another student named Hafsah uncover is too terrible to contemplate, let alone be a key part of.

Anger is the key, but who is harnessing it for their own ends?

Think S.T.A.G.S with its age-old school, Good Girl’s Guide to Murder with it’s investigative flavour, and Asylum for creep-factor, and you will get a little closer to The Society of Soulless Girls. Still, comparisons aside, this novel is out on its own, and had me guessing to the last pages.

Set now, but linked with the past, The Society of Soulless Girls is rich with simile, raw with supernatural vengeance and gentle with blossoming awareness and affection.

So many things are effortlessly tied together as the truth unravels at the same time:

Anger vs Sunshine

Hate vs Kindness

Questions vs Answers

Good vs Evil

Revenge vs Truth

Light vs Darkness

Scooby Doo vs Sherlock

Age vs Youth

Male Domination vs Women’s Anger

A gripping tale of mystery, anger, revenge, study, secrets and a Society built to combat murder and fear.

Author – Laura Steven

Age – 15+

(2022, Harper Collins, Farshore Fiction, Ex Convent, Nuns, Tower, Unexplained Deaths, Friendship, Room Mates, Mystery, Secrets, School, Hockey, Possession, Questions, Crime, Secret Society, Cat, Creepy, LGBTQ+, Murders, Investigation, Rituals, Tinctures, Sleep walking, Anger, Control, Bloodlust, Horror, Acceptance)