Evenfall: Soul to Keep

Featuring that certain kind of homespun fantasy appeal one would expect from a small press title that doesn't hide its melodramatic origins, the second volume of Evenfall works hard to win readers over and just about gets there. Soul to Keep picks up where the first collection left off, with the spunky and duskily beautiful 19-year-old Phoebe Shankar still stuck in a fantasy netherworld, unsure if she's alive or dead. Such existential queries are put to the side (even after she comes across her own corpse) when she has to go on the run from slavering beasts known as Nightling Stalkers. Helping Phoebe in her fight for survival and sanity are a helpful birdman named Donald and the quietly hulking warrior Sanamar. Planes of reality get breached with ease in this series, and it isn't long before Phoebe's boyfriend, Robin, has fallen into the same alternate universe (and accompanying dangers). Stathis has a fresh feel for his stock characters and a welcome embrace of dialogue; if the artwork were less juvenile in its execution, this might be a series with appeal beyond the junior high set.Pete Stathis is the author of 'Evenfall: Soul to Keep', published 2007 under ISBN 9781424326327 and ISBN 142432632X.