Solace and Grief follows the story
of a 17 year old girl called Solace. She was raised in a foster care, but when
she finds out she is a vampire she is compelled to run away. Soon, she finds
herself within a group of other strange young adults. They are part of ‘the
Rare’ and each one of them has a ‘Trick’, which is a superpower or a supernatural
ability. For example, Jess is a psychic reader, and Solace is a vampire. But soon
things start to get a little weird... A Faceless man is stalking her and Professor
Lukin is a bit too interested in their ‘Trick’...
This is the first book of a series
called The Rare. It is set in Sydney, Australia and I found it interesting that Foz Meadows has used real places in the city but added twists to make them supernatural. At the beginning of the book, the story seemed to be droning
on to nowhere. However, some things that seemed irrelevant at the start
actually ended up being important towards the end. I didn’t like how Solace and
her friends went to the Gadfly and got drunk, then stayed home all day. This
seemed to happen several times, and I think it stalled the story a bit.
Nevertheless I continued reading, and I’m glad I did.
I loved the variety of characters
in the book. They all have different ‘Tricks’ and personalities. I found it a
bit hard to remember who was who at the start, because a lot of characters are
introduced all at the same time.
