Book: Tortured Souls by Melissa K. Roehrich
Reviewed by Anonymous
Tortured Souls absolutely lives up to its name. Every single person in this story has been shaped by pain, manipulation, survival, and impossible choices.
I’ve read the Legacy series but not the Lady of Darkness series, and I can confidently say you do not need to read the others before diving in. Everything connects, but this story stands firmly on its own.
Let’s talk about Kailia.
I loved her.
Kailia is neurospicy, and I genuinely think Melissa did such a thoughtful, nuanced job portraying the way she processes the world. Her internal dialogue felt real — not overdone, not repetitive, not filler. You see her working through thoughts, emotions, social cues, manipulation… all of it. There are things she doesn’t fully understand, and yet she does the absolute best she can while navigating an incredibly difficult situation.
Cethin might be one of the most complex MMCs I’ve ever read.
He feels genuinely good. And yet… he has done deeply questionable, sometimes seriously bad things. I still don’t know if he’s more good or more bad. And I love that I don’t know. He isn’t written as a clean-cut hero or an obvious villain. Cethin is layered, morally gray in a way that actually feels morally gray.
The emotional tension between them? Thick. Complicated. Messy.
And then the ending.
The twists absolutely blindsided me. I did not see them coming. I sat there in shock, processing what I had just read. It reframes so much, and now I’m desperate for book two.
And Lady of Darkness just moved way up my TBR!