Memoirs Of A Gothic Soul by Rebekah Armusik Book Review

Memoirs of a Gothic Soul by Rebekah Armusik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nadija Fey is weeks away from graduating college and is eager to escape small-city life. She feels suffocated by her eccentric Slovak family, an abusive ex-boyfriend, and a drug-addicted childhood friend. To her, life seems empty, lonely, and stale. The only consolation she has is a dream to move to Prague and start a new life.

Despite her grandmother’s warnings and the pleas of friends and family to stay, she embarks on her journey to find herself, but to her dismay, Prague seems to harbor more pain and suffering than she anticipated. She is forced to accept a life she never would have chosen for herself—a life her grandmother fought desperately to shield her from.

Nadija quickly finds herself caught in a celestial world struggling to maintain its delicate balance—a balance contingent upon her acceptance of her destiny. And though she finds the love she has always desired, it comes with an awful price—her life.

In the first of her epic thirteen-book series, author Rebekah Armusik captivates the reader with rich language and colorful characters. In Memoirs of a Gothic Soul, Armusik successfully redefines the Gothic novel and resurrects the sensuality, mystique, and allure of the classic vampire with an unexpected twist. (summary from Amazon)

My Review:

This book really had me hooked. From the very beginning, I went nuts, wanting the name of Diji’s soul mate, that was predicted early one. We get a short section that takes place 50 or more years in the past from now. One of the Guardians (Olga) has visions of the future, and she has a vision of one of her descendent meeting and falling in love with her soul mate, a true soul mate, and what scares her at that time, is she knows this man who will be the one to capture Dijis heart. BUT it drove me nuts, as she has a conversation with this man, who she never calls by name, just refers to him as My Grace. She is determined to set him on the right path to being a good man, not down the path he was currently heading.

She shared the vision with him, in his head, so he saw her. And was shocked and overjoyed that this women existed; he has been painting her for awhile. He can see no one but her, but he has no idea how to find her. Well, he then is informed he has to wait, as she was not yet born. This is all in the first few chapters of the book, so not much spoilery, as its read right away. It drove me nuts not knowing his name. Below is a section for you to read:

Here is a quote from Lady Olga (had the vision) and who she called My Grace about the vision, of his soul mate:
From Olga’s point of view:
(Kindle location 133 of 6791)
(Quote start)

“Do you dream of a woman?” I ask bluntly. He laughs wickedly. “I dream of many women.” I look at him sternly. “Stop playing games with me. I know you dream of a particular woman,” I allege with fury. He once again becomes serious. “Yes. If you must know, I have dreamt of a particular woman for many years.”

I look up at the paintings as I sip my drink.”That woman-is she the woman you dream of?” I ask, staring at her face.

He recoils at my words. “How could you know that?”

“I saw her with you today. You were holding hands in my vision.” I again look at her face in the beautiful portrait; I would know her eyes anywhere.

“You know her?” He asks as he jumps out of the chair. “Yes-yes, I do.” I answer quietly.

“Where is she? Where can I find her?” He is frantic as he paces back and forth in front of me. “You will have to wait, darling-she has not come to us yet.”

He stops and looks at the paintings and then at me.”Why are you tormenting me? Where is she? I need to see her!” he says as his voice rises with an accusatory tone.

It is at this moment I realize I am correct. She belongs to him, and there is nothing I can do. This certainty makes me ill, and I can actually feel the vomit burn my throat. I am never wrong, but there is always hope-the hope may be reading the future incorrectly, that I am misguided.

He screams as he stands over me ”Where is she?” He is obsessed with her, and again another fracture in my heart forms. “Why won’t you answer me, god-dammit?” I wince at his blasphemy.

“She is not yet born!” I finally bellow in frustration. He stares back in shock. “What?”

“She is not on this earth yet. You will have to wait half a century to see her,” I quietly explain. He looks at me in disbelief. I can feel his heart break; He misses her, though she does not yet exist. (Quote End)

We now go forward to Diji’s (Nadjia Amayla Fey, is her name, Diji is nickname, its in her POV from now on) life as she is 23, (and yes she is the girl in the paintings and Olga’s vision, glossy black hair, beautiful big, deep blue eyes, very pretty) but she has lots of heartaches, a very abusive boyfriend, or rather ex-boyfriend, and she can’t shake him. He stalks her, and ends up hurting her and almost killing her. She has one gorgeous best friend, names Crash, he sounds so yummy, but Diji is the wrong sex for his tastes, so then I know it’s not him, then she has this other guy friend, Patrick, seems super cool, good-looking, protective, but was not sure if this was the guy in HER dreams, see, she has been dreaming of her soul mate as well. So I am reading along, trying to figure who the soul mate is, until we finally find out. I will not say, as to not spoil it for you. It was a brilliant way to put the suspense in the story for us.

I really love this book, it’s written so beautifully, I can really connect with Diji, she really has a strong will, and am proud of her decision to leave home to do research in Prague, the best thing she could have done. She wants to do research on stories her grand-mother always told her of, of beautiful people, who do not age, and are immortal. She believes her grand-ma is crazy, but got an idea to go back to her roots, and research the legends, for possibly writing a book, about vampires, as that is what she thinks of when she hears that description. I will tell you here, it’s not exactly what you think. The new take on vampirism in this book is unique and pretty interesting to me. I really enjoyed that.

She goes to Prague to stay with a cousin Milla, and meets some interesting people. She meets up with her contact, who claims he is a vampire, Andrei, and is shocked to find out that he is more than what she thought. She also has a connection to people’s energy; she is more than a mere human herself, which is fascinating to discover more about her.

When she finally sees HIM it gets really interesting (meaning her soul mate) Here is a quote of his description (No name) (Kindle Location 2001 of 6791)

“He stood tall. I squinted and estimated…at least a little over six feet. He had a medium build and wore a black fitted suit with a cornflower blue French cuff dress shirt. He wore no tie, so the shirt was unbuttoned in a relaxed fashion. My heart skipped a beat as I became lost in his splendor. His skin was flawless. His face was strong, and every feature was perfect. I stood enraptured as I watched him run his fingers through his thick black hair. He was walking sex, and I fixated on his every move.” (he has ice blue eyes too, just was not in this particular section)

Of course Nadjia finds trouble yet again. Another guy she meets at her cousin Milla’s named Adak, it’s a bad soul, she feels ill around him, and the energy he puts off literally makes her sick. He is a character to keep an eye on, seems Nadjia finds trouble wherever she goes.

She meets some more of her cousins, Mischa, Athena, Katya, and Antoniya. She is feeling more at home in this strange country. Then she discovers the truth, and things get very interesting at this point.

The ending is a huge cliffhanger, and I am glad I have the next 2 books already waiting to be read.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the paranormal and great love story on top of it. No silly love triangles in this book. I see it as more for adults, not young teens. It does have a few gruesome parts, 17 and up should be ok. Not scary, just a little violence, domestic violence situations in a few parts.

This book is a very good start to what I think will be an amazing series. Its starts with plenty of background, and descriptions, and really gives us a good picture in our heads of what is playing out. It’s a great foundation for the following books. I can’t wait to start them.

Mariposa is book 2 of The Gothic Memoirs series and Lucifer Rising book 3 of The Gothic Memoirs series Check them out to. I will have reviews of them when I finish them as well.
Rebekah Armusik Is amazing!

I will post my reviews for the next 2 books as I finish them.