Summoner by S.D. Grimm

Summoner by S.D. Grimm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Six months ago Allie lost her mother to cancer which caused her to cut herself off from her boyfriend and friends. Now Allie has started to feel more like herself again and wants to repair her relationships that she had ignored however she’s told her boyfriend that they should only be friends moving forward. What Allie never expected rejoining the group was to end up in a cemetery taking part in a dare to go “witching” for bodies with divining rods.

When Allie’s turn arrives to use the rods she finds that she begins to hear a female voice speaking to her and little does she know she has summoned the ghost with the rods. Allie then finds herself beginning to have nightmares with the voice haunting her and when she’s up in the middle of the night she runs into her new neighbor, Cody. Cody has also suffered a loss due to an accident leaving him scarred and missing a hand. As the two grow close Cody helps Allie return to the cemetery to face the voice to see what is going on bringing him into Allie’s curse as her guardian.

Summoner by S.D. Grimm really seemed to be a bit of a blend of a young adult contemporary romance with a supernatural fantasy. Allie and Cody were both battling with dealing with their respective loses in their lives which that alone could have brought them together to begin a relationship without the ghostly aspects of the book but adding those in gave the book a whole other layer to the story making this quite the interesting mix.

I rather enjoyed most everything about the story. The characters were extremely likable and the fantasy element was a rather interesting plot to follow and not one that I’ve seen often. My one complaint really came from a small bit to the story were Allie tries to find out more about summoning by heading to the library to read a few paragraphs then complain of needing to know more. My first thought here was what teen is really heading to the library in this day and age? It would have felt a lot more realistic to hop on the internet.

Overall thought this one was a nice little mix of genres all bundled into one fast paced and enjoyable young adult read. I’d certainly recommend checking this one out if it sounds like one you’d enjoy reading.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.