Falter

Faltering Souls, Book 1

By: Haven Cage

Narrated by: Lucy Zukaitis

Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

Living on the streets with her father is tough, but Nevaeh Richards soon finds a life immersed in angels and demons is tougher than she could ever imagine.

When her father suddenly becomes ill, Nevaeh's eyes are opened to a world she never knew existed. A war is bleeding into the human realm, and Nev is developing strange new powers that has both sides eager to claim her soul's devotion.

The Devil wants what he wants, though. He commands a demon to take her father's soul hostage.

The cost to save him?

She'll have to surrender to darkness and become something far more evil than the hell chasing her.

As Nevaeh struggles to come up with a solution for saving her father's soul without damning herself...and the world, she is forced to rely on the guidance of a man she's not sure she can trust, and a rogue angel who's keeping secrets about her past.

A gritty, suspenseful story of spiritual warfare, the delicate line between good and evil, and love that might not be enough.

©2016 Haven Cage (P)2019 Haven Cage

Good Read

Falter (Faltering Souls #1) was a good read by Haven Cage. Navaeh and George are homeless and have been living on the streets. George is not her biological father but has been an acting father figure. They both get hired at a local cafe but George quickly becomes ill. A demon takes his soul hostage since the Devil wants Nev as ransom. Gavyn, the cafe-owner convinces Nev not to give herself over to the Devil. I really enjoyed reading this book and can't wait to read more in this series.

Nevaeah must fight to be good or evil

Navaha is a unique person she's part demon and part colada .She's fighting to be good or evil. she must make the decision of what side she is going to fight for. she wants to rescue George from hell, the man that was the closest thing to a father. But her guarding angel wants her to commit to God. there are so many conflicts waring in her. What to do? the author wrote a very interesting book. I liked it. the narrator was great in telling the story. an abrupt ending. A cliff hanger. waiting for book 2.

Not all bad, not all good

I got this ARC via audiobook boom and this is my voluntary review. She is not all bad and not all good. Each decision she makes has her dual heritage to be considered. She is tasked with making these decisions sometimes during a lot of stress and she has to make them quickly. This is sometimes how our lives are governed and we have to decide what is the best course of action. Narration added to the story and moved it along.

Cliffhanger Alert!

4.5 Stars.
Falter is book 1 in the Faltering Souls series. The book is told in first person POV of the main character, Nevaeh. Notice that the name is Heaven spelled backward. I was wondering from the get go if that was meant to be foreshadowing. Very clever.

Falter was my first experience with this author. I really enjoyed the author's writing style and flow. The words she chooses are so pretty and thoughtfully put together. She has a very poetic way of explaining things. I really liked how the story kept building upon itself and evolving all the way through. I will absolutely read this author again.

This book is about 23-year-old, homeless woman, Nevaeh. When she was a young child and her parents had died, a homeless man named George found her under a bridge and took her in. He raised her and protected her and essentially became her father. The beginning of the book is really just showing them as a homeless family and what their daily life is. Soon, they both get a job at a cafe ran by a man named Gavyn who says he just wants to do something nice and help them out. Then everything takes a turn, Nevaeh starts to see, hear, and smell things that she cannot explain and then she sees George's soul get taken by a demon. This leads us into the story of angels and demons and religious discovery. Nevaeh learns that she is celata and is part demon and she needs to make the choice to join the light or the dark, God or the Devil. But before she can make the choice she has to figure out how to save George's soul and get him back from the demons. She has the help of Archard, her guardian angel.

Even though this book has a lot of discussion about angels, demons, faith, humanity, spirituality, heaven, hell, god, and redemption, it was done in a way that didn't feel like bible thumping. I am not religious and can get turned off by really preachy books, but this did not feel like preaching, just a fantasy story. I think atheists would be able to still enjoy this book just fine as the work of fiction that it is.

Ultimately this book is more of an urban fantasy type genre, but there was also mystery, suspense, horror, sexuality, and the start of a romantic interest/potential love triangle. I loved how much was included in this book.

The only real negative feedback that I have is about chapter 9. It confused the hell out of me (no pun intended) when it began, and I restarted it a couple of times, re-listening to the end of chapter 8 with it. It picked up in a totally different place and scene and I had no idea how Nevaeh got there. Then chapter 10 picked back up where 8 left off. As it turns out it was a premonition, which is actually the title of that chapter but since all of the chapters were titled, I didn't realize it was literally just a premonition. The whole thing felt out of place and pulled me out of the story. There needed to be an appropriate lead in to explain the premonition. The premonition finally made sense at the very end of the book but up until that point, I thought it was just a random chapter that didn't fit.

Fair warning, this book ends on a cliffhanger; a big one. Thankfully, the rest of the series has been released so it will be easy to just jump right in to book 2. It looks like this is the only one on audible right now though. The others are just in print.

The only other thing that I want to mention is a very brief scene involving animal cruelty, where Layla, the mean girl in the book, threw a cat against a tree. Animal cruelty is pretty much my only hard no when it comes to reading so I am mentioning it in case others like to be prepared for those scenes as well. If that is too much for you, just fast forward like 5 or 10 seconds once Layla takes off her shoes at the fountain and the cat walks up.

Let's talk about the narrator. She was INCREDIBLE! I absolutely loved this narrator. Her voices were fantastic, and she had several distinct voices. Her male voices sounded male and female sounded female. Her pacing was great and she spoke clearly. She also did sound effects and did them in a way that they didn't pull me out of the story at all. It all fit together very organically. Usually I'm not big on sound effects but I think they added so much to this story. It was perfect. I liked the narrator so much that I searched her to see what else she has done but it looks like this might be her only audiobook. Hopefully she continues as the narrator for the rest of this series and does more in the future because I hope to listen to her again with other books too.

I absolutely recommend this book. I am so happy to have found it and also found a new (to me) author to explore.

Falter

Will she or won't she??? I found myself pondering that question in one way or another throughout the entire book! LOL Will she choose light? Will she choose dark? Will she save those she loves or will she fail? Will she hook up with this guy or will she pass? What about her guardian? The story is filled with action and is well written. The narrator does a pretty good job handling all of the different characters and making them distinguishable. In my opinion, Falter is well worth the listen! I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving this honest review.

incredibly good

the book was very well written and very well described it was enjoyable and you asked yourself so many questions during the book that you just had to know it wasn't a short story but it was so good and so intriguing in the best way that you didn't feel the length of the book I listened to it in the car in home and I haven't felt the moment the book ended it was wonderful
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Spiritual warfare

This book had a great visual on what spiritual warfare can be like. I was hooked and couldn't put it down! The narrator's voice was great and the characters were well rounded.

I enjoyed many things about this story.

I really enjoyed this story. I was co fused about the schooling she had beings she’s been homeless her whole life but other than that....wait there is also that pesky ending...or not ending :( Now other than those two items the actual story is wonderful. There is action, suspense, drama and some hotter than heck guys.

Each of the characters were put together nicely. They each have secrets That slowly come out helping to build the suspense. Archers friend adds some fun to the story as does Malachi. They do not at all like you think they should knowing what they are.

This is a new to me author. I like her ability to weave a story (But not the cliffhanger).

I did listen to this on audio. Lucy Zakiutis did a good job..even with the accents.

interesting twist on angels/demons

Falter is an paranormal romance tale that is written in a lush, almost poetic way. You can really tell that the author read her book out loud as she edited, so it translated very well to audio. The narration by Lucy Zukaitis is an excellent match to the character. Her voice lent itself to scenes of high emotion very well. The book builds tension slowly, and deftly insinuates in the otherworldly elements of the story in ways that kept me guessing. When the angel is finally revealed, I was completely surprised. The story twists our expectations of angels and demons in some unique ways, which made it interesting. There are a lot of switches of tension and emotional tone that made the book really compelling, and lots of characters that are a little mysterious so you don't know for sure if they are good or evil right off. There are some pretty steamy scenes in there along with the fantastical story. The cliffhanger ending made me want to dive right into the next book for the rest of the story! I got a free copy from the author in exchange for my honest review but it's definitely worth a read.

Let this one carry you away!

Falter is book 1 of the faltering souls series. Haven Cage’s writing is highly skilled and more like poetry then anything I ever read and narrator Lucy Zukaitis Voice compliments this completely. I regularly listen to books while working but I couldn’t wait to get home put in my headphones lay back and let this story carry me away into this world. If Demons vs Angels and or urban fantasy is your jam pick this audiobook up now