Like the reviewer below, I too love a good Civil War era drama and ever since my recent reading of Gone With the Wind, haven't really found anything that spectacular. However, this one was REALLY good. While cliches run rampant (Preacher and Eberly have certainly been done before), there still is something about the tortured souls of Cain and Rosetta that kept me reading. Also, some of the supporting cast, including, John Brown himself, were great! But the protagonists were interesting characters with just enough likeability to keep you caring what happened to them. There is plenty of adventure, tidbits about the time and place (including the prior Mexican war) and the fluid and disturbing business of "soul catching." I stayed up well into the night reading this novel and if you like the time, place and subject matter, I highly recommend it. Just a solid, well written, interesting adventure! ( )

Can the good in a man’s heart overcome all outside forces? This is a dilemma Augustus Cain must decide. Cain was raised to be a Southerner plantation owner, with all the responsibilities that entailed. However, Cain was an adventurous young man with the world to see which leads him to the Mexican War. Because of this war, he has a life he wants to forget and becomes a Soul Catcher. He has the ability to track runaway slaves in the North. He wants to leave the profession, but gambling losses keep returning him to an occupation he dislikes, until he meets Rosetta, a young beautiful, blue-eyed slave that changes his feeling about slavery. This is a story that cannot be forgotten. ( )

I love a good Civil-War-era/1800s-in-the-U.S. historical fiction novel. And this *was* a good one. Cain is a man who’s more than a little bit lost. He’s basically sleep-walking through life, drunk on either whiskey, laudanum, or both, and gambling for money to live. Except he’s not always a great gambler, and now he’s gotten himself into a debt he can’t run away from. When the man he owes money to wants him to use his tracking skills to bring home his runaway slave, Rosetta, Cain doesn’t really have a choice. Soul Catcher is the story of that journey.

Cain is forced to travel with a group of men that you would expect to be slave-catchers… generally either apathetic or downright cruel and sadistic. There is a lot of both the expected and unexpected here, and though I mostly guessed the ending and the decision Cain would make about his life, I never would have guessed the final twist. Some may question how realistic Cain and Rosetta are in their actions and interactions, but I can believe it all the same. ( )

Soul Catcher is the story of Augustus Cain, a man who is lost to himself and his society. He spends his time drinking and gambling. When he finds himself with debts he is unable to pay, he is forced to revert to his one distinct talent - catching runaway slaves. Cain doesn't necessarily enjoy his work, but he is good at it. He rationalizes what he does by viewing slaves as property instead of as human beings, but each time he is required to take on his role as soul catcher, Cain declares it will be the last. Inevitably, his demons get the best of him and he finds himself falling back on his talent. When Cain finds himself in a situation where he would lose his beloved horse if he didn't agree to work for a wealthy Virginia planter under the supervision of Mr. Eberly's trusted men and Preacher, a sadistic man who will stop at no form of torture to get what he is paid to get, Cain is fully determined to never step back into this role again.

Although this novel begins with Cain being caught and confronted by Mr. Eberly by surprise while in a drunken and laudanum induced stupor, this novel started out slow for me. The writing was excellent and I could clearly see and almost smell the setting. What made is slow was Cain's tone. He is a depressed man and the only thing that generally seemed to engage him was the thought of losing his beloved horse. Depressed people are not exciting and engaging people and in that way it made sense for it to seem slow. I was thankful when it picked up when they quickly found Henry, the male slave who ran away with Rosetta, the slave Mr. Eberly really wanted back - and wanted back unharmed.

Cain can quite interestingly be compared and contrasted with the slaves he is charged to capture. He grew up on a small plantation as the oldest son. His father had made plans for him to marry a local Southern Belle and thus expand both families within the county. Cain did not want to live the same life as his father. He had no interest in farming and raising a family. On the eve of his marriage, he ran away and joined the army, but that was simply a change in atmosphere. He wasn't living his father's life, but he was no closer to discovering, let alone going after, the life he wanted. After barely surviving the war in Mexico, Cain fell into soul catching because it was convenient and he was good at it. His life simply drifted because he never allowed himself to dream. The slaves he captured were unhappy with their state in life. They knew that they wanted to be free, though. They ran away like Cain did. When they were unsuccessful, however, they often tried again. Because they did not have the luxury of drowning themselves in their own sorrows, they were free in ways that Cain could not comprehend - until he met and observed Rosetta. In this way, Soul Catcher is a novel about catching and then setting freeing your own soul.

Oftentimes, a novel is either plot driven or character driven. Soul Catcher was an interesting mixture of both aspects of storytelling. The story of Cain's tracking, capturing, and bringing home Mr. Eberly's property consistently unfold. However, the story of Cain's inner life and how he is impacted by his time with Rosetta ebbs and flows within it very well. Although I wasn't certain that someone as young as Rosetta would be so wise as she was depicted, this didn't distract me during my reading. It was something that I thought about after the fact while discussing it with others. If you don't mind the harsh reality of life as a runaway slave, I would recommend this novel to you. It is well written and provides a view into Southern life leading up to the Civil War.

http://literatehousewife.com/2009/02/... ( )

In many ways, this reminded me of another book I loved, Cold Mountain. Both have characters motivated by love traveling throught a brutal yet beautiful part of America. This story is about Augustus Cain, a down on his luck slave catcher, called soul catcher by slaves, who is hired by a wealthy man to catch and return two of his runaway slaves. He is most particularly interested in the return of Rosetta, the female who has run away before. Driven by the need to make money to get back on his feet and the belief that he is obeying the law by returning property to its rightful owner, Cain's mission gets complicated by his fellow slave-catchers, abolitionists and Rosetta herself. This is a beautifully written novel about an ugly period in American history. The characters and setting were so well-drawn that I was able to clearly imagine the story as it unfolded. What a great book! ( )