Irish mythology, the age old question about human soul, and horror –  Sheppard has taken 3 enjoyable elements and blended them into an enjoyable mix. 

It starts quite literally with a bang as Irish American Shane is on his first ever flight over to Ireland. He’s taken from plane to hospital where he lies in a very strange coma for 3 weeks solid. As he is starting to wake up, he can hear the nurses around him, but he can also hear another voice. A voice that can’t come from anywhere else other than his head. When Shane awakes, he has a lot of questions that need answers, and soon he discovers that his path has been set by blood, and that life and death are nothing like he thought they are. 

Soul Food, inspired by the great works of W. B. Yeats on Irish folklore, does not shy away from introducing mythical beasts and otherworldly beings. There is plenty of action to go around and overall, it reads like a pretty cool supernatural flick that could easily be a movie. This book is a neat package of life-changing revelations and doing what needs to be done in order to survive. Because, yes, things get dangerous and heated pretty fast as Shane navigates the mind-blowing new way of life and death he has been introduced. As per, there is no shortage of bad guys and the epic battle with the final boss is just that – epic! 

One of Sheppard’s strengths is writing great characters. The stories I have read by this author to date have been varied in their theme and the recurring element in Sheppard’s books have been great characters – good or evil, he just nails them. Shane, in Soul Food, is an ex-soldier who’s career path was cut short due to losing a limb. With a prosthetic leg and an occasionally triggered PTSD, Shane displays the appropriate amount of disbelief and equal amounts of stubborn gung-ho to evoke emotion in the reader ranging from sympathy to elation to attachment. 

300+ pages Soul Food might be, but I can say from personal experience that it reads way faster. Ancient bloodline, a network of fighters, mythical beings from Yeats’s pen, and souls that can tether themselves into the mind of a living mind – it can’t get any more supernatural than that. An engaging, fast-paced thriller in between good and evil, a premise as old as time, delivered from a viewpoint that human body is nothing but soul food and that our biggest fight comes right after we die.