Books: Library of Souls By Ransom Riggs (2015)

Library of Souls picks up where Hollow City left off, with 16 year-old Jacob Portman and teen looking Emma Bloom (who is well over 100) following the vanishing trail of their kidnapped friends, who’ve disappeared into the Devil’s Acre, the most dangerous loop in all of peculiardom. Here are the outcasts of the Peculiars, the exiles, the criminals, and the drug addicts that all exist within the dark heart of the paradise, along with the  villainous wights. But all may not be lost, as Jacob and Emma encounter an unlikely benefactor, who with his ingenious loop-making machine, will finally be able help them make their final stand in place where the fate of every peculiar children will be decided once and for all.

With the conclusion, author Ransom Riggs gives us a satisfying, tense, often strange and moving ending to a series that rose above the mere expectations of being just another Harry Potter tale. We get a wonderful voice in Jacob, who comes off as a very convincing with a believable transformation from awkward young man to the Chosen One (yes, I know. But there is only so many ways to tell these tales). Still this X Men meets many British World War II Costume Dramas meets Doctor Who (the whole Panloopticon reminds me of the serial Carnival of Monsters) rises above the rest of books in this genre. Along with those sometimes creepy photographs, Ransom prose work brings together a fun, dark tale that brims with excitement.