A Book Review of the Scent of Her Soul by B. Allen Davis

The Characters

Mike is a very selfless hero. He’s given up everything to save as many girls as he can from sex trafficking. He’s also clever and found ways to make sure he can get the girls out and to safety. He asks for payment in return for his help because he has to make a living, he keeps first aid supplies in his car, he keeps disguises and money to bribe people, and he has a partner that helps him on his jobs.

The story also goes into the point of view of his wife Deborah who is living with his autistic son. It was nice to see an autistic character portrayed.

Mike encounters several different girls who’ve been kidnapped or have found their way into the industry in other ways. Though kidnapping is a reality a lot of times girls get seduced into the industry with the pimp posing as a boyfriend. Then by the time the girl realizes what she’s gotten into, she can’t get out. Girls will feel trapped in the industry because they don’t have good homes to go back to. These are all sad realities. 

My biggest complaint about the whole book is that the dialogue is very clunky at times. I found myself wincing at some of the phrases that seemed out of place like “trauma drama” and “fool.” Trauma drama felt like a really brush-off way to refer to the trauma that a girl would experience after being raped and seemed to go against the mood of the book whenever it was used. There was also some more eloquent terminology like “fool” used and though this would work in a fantasy setting it seemed out of place in a modern setting since most people don’t talk like that. Some people do. I do, but it didn’t seem fitting for these characters.

The Setting

I’ve never read a book that’s set in Washington, so it was neat to see a story set there even though the worst parts of it were portrayed.

The Theme

There are a lot of themes about the value of life and that every girl deserves to be loved and cared for. Life can beat people down and convince them that they don’t mean anything to anyone, but Mike shows these girls that they do have value and are worth fighting for.

Content Cautions

This has the most content of any Bryan Davis novel I’ve read (and if you look below at the list you’ll see I’ve read a lot and that’s not even everything). But all of it is done very tastefully and Mr. Davis wanted to portray the situation and characters as accurately as possible. 

There are several young girls that had just been raped or even gang-raped, some are found naked. There are pornographic photos and videos of rape though none are described in too much detail. There’s talk about penetration and semen in the context of rape. Mention of incestual abuse. Brief talk about oral sex. Mention of prostitution.

Multiple characters are shot dead with guns, one through the head. Knife wounds and gunshot wounds. Out of shot torture involving broken fingers. A man beats a girl with a belt. 

Girls are drugged. And there’s mention of characters using cocaine and marijuana. 

The middle finger gesture is used and there is also some swearing because let’s be real, people in this horrible industry swear. Seven uses of d*** and bi***, two uses of crap and bullsh*t, and one use of a**, hell, and bast***.  

What We Can Take Away For Our Writing

*SPOILERS*Reversing an Ability From Good to Bad – At about midway through the book, Mike finally meets Sugar Daddy aka Vega, the man who kidnapped Mike’s daughter. He forces Mike to use his ability to find girls to bring into the sex trafficking industry as opposed to saving them. 

How this can be applied to writing: Is there a way your characters’ abilities can be used for evil? Could a bad guy exploit that or would they turn dark because of the character’s choices?
*END OF SPOILERS*

Conclusion

This is a really powerful book. Though it is disturbing more people need to be aware of what goes on in the underbelly of Western society and sometimes a novel brings that home far more than PSAs, News Reports, and signs.