I received this book as an early review copy. It took me a long time to get through. Their are scenes in the book that are exceedingly graphic.

Artist, Livia, has gone through mainly lives being chased by a demon. Livia and her soul mate (husband) have not yet defeated him, but need to in this life.

It took me a while to get past the need to read this with red pen in hand. I've read a number of ARCs and this one suffered most from the impotence of proof reading. Once past that however, if you read Rachelle Caine, Kin Harrison or Lilith St.Crow you'll probably like this book. If you have the added benefit of being familiar with Asheville, North Carolina it will definitely add a dimension to your experience.
The hero is a young woman who is dealt some brutal cards. It would be easy for this book to get graphic, self indulgent or self pitying but instead handles the attacks either 'off camera' or with a very stark, straight forward "and then the brutal rape" style that doesn't linger on prurient details or sugar coat. I'm not sure what it says, however, that the only way authors can prove the strength of a female character these days is to show her overcoming a vicious rape.
Bridger does have new angles on old paranormal stand-byes and that alone make this book worth at least a thumb through.
I do have to say that I found the ending to be rather weak.
Without giving it away it was clear that Bridger is setting up for a specific storyline to be featured in the sequel and it's a shame.
All in all I found this book to be a quick, paranormal, beach trash, read and I say that in the most affectionate of manners. ( )

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy
If I hadn’t been sent this book for review, I would not have finished it and that was before reaching the first of two horribly disturbing and graphic rape scenes. I don’t know why there is a trend in urban fantasy to have main characters suffer through rape, but I can think of three other series that have done so (some tastefully, others less so), but this was by far the worst in terms of sheer vileness.

Livia Belane was only a little girl when her grandmother informed her that she was a Soul Catcher who can see demons, draw/paint them, and then burn the pictures to vanquish them. After her loving mother, possessed by a demon, killed her brother and Livia was forced to draw/burn her mother, she spends the next several years in an insane asylum. When she is released as a ridiculously foulmouthed adult (she manages to use the f-word in almost every sentence she speaks) she is befriended by a group of ‘good’ souls whom she has known, but forgotten about, in her many past lives. This is about the time when Livia dreams about an uber ugly demon whom she calls Pig Face. When Pig Face escapes from her drawing, possesses a human, and viciously beats and rapes her, she recovers only to learn that Ian, her true love through all her lives, has now possessed the body of her rapist. Livia has forgotten, but she, Pig Face, and Ian have all faced each other in previous lives with similar outcomes: savage rape, torture, and then death (we get to relive these past lives with Livia).

The only aspect of Soul Catcher that I found remotely compelling was how Livia struggled throughout the book to see past the physical appearance of the demon/man who raped her to the soul of Ian inside. The rest was a convoluted mess. The premise was intriguing and the prologue featuring Lavia and Ian more so. But from page 1 and on it was every bit as tortuous as an encounter with the ridiculously named Pig Face. I never understood why any one of the many characters did anything; Lavia, while a sad character given her life experiences, was supremely unlikable; her true love Ian a jerk for being offended by that fact that Lavia didn’t want to ‘feck’ as he called it soon after his body raped her (she still had stitches down under); and the whole endless cycle of life, fight, torture, rape, die was never justified: the villain was just evil, that’s it.

Wow, I really didn’t like this book. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I disliked a book so much.

Sexual Content: Graphic rape scene followed by graphic sex scene, then a demon orgy, followed by another graphic rape scene and another graphic sex scene. ( )

This is the first book I have received through the Library Thing Early Reviewer Program. Bridger has created an original view on the battle between Good and Evil. Her rules of magic with banes and boons gives an interesting twist on what is fast becoming an overcrowded genre. Setting the story in the mountains of North Carolina provides an extra pleasure for this Carolina born reader. The pace is nail-bitingly quick. Main characters are well-developed as are many supporting ones. The bigggest negative I found with the story is the graphic nature of the sex scenes (more scatalogical than erotic), and the profanity seems more forced than natural. All in all, I found it a good story worthy of the reader's time. ( )

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with this book by Leigh Bridger. I didn't have very good luck with the last Urban Fantasy book I received through Library Thing's Early Reviewer Program. I was actually expecting more of the same. Instead, I got a fresh new story and plot, a tough as nails female protagonist and some interesting supporting characters. The demon is one awful, scary and absolutely perfectly evil for this type of story.

There was some overuse of the F word, but after awhile I didn't even notice it anymore. Once I got to know Livia a little better, her use of swearing is very much part of her character. Livia is a soul catcher, reborn many times, and this time is living as a folk artist in Asheville, NC. She is surrounded by friends who have been by her side in every life. As Livia, she encounters a demon that has been following her throughout her lifetimes set on revenge. She gets help from her friends and from Ian, who turns out to be her soul mate.

Soul Catcher is the first book in The Outsider Series. ( )