Literature / Soul Screamers

High school junior Kaylee Cavanaugh is trying to balance her normal life with a newly discovered, terrifying ability to make life-and-death decisions—literally. Kaylee is a banshee, complete with an uncontrollable scream that rips from her when someone near her is about to die. And the more people she saves, the harder it becomes to guard her own soul from things that go bump in the Netherworld.

So far there are five published books and a prequel short story in the series:

• Reaper (prequel novella)
• My Soul to Take
• My Soul to Save
• My Soul to Keep
• My Soul to Steal
• Never Sleep (prequel novella)
• If I Die
• Before I Wake

---

Provides the following tropes:

• Aura Vision: Shadow Vision: Kaylee can see dark shades when she starts to sense death nearing.
• Bettyand Veronica: Kaylee and Sabine for Nash respectively.
• Big Brother Instinct: Tod displays this in the prequel novella Reaper when he trades his life to reaper Levi to save Nash's and becomes a reaper himself.
• Brown Note: Banshee Wail: The horrible screech Kaylee is forced to make causes headaches, sickness, and foretells of death.
• Charm Person: Male bean sidhes have this ability.
• Compound Title: If I Die and Before I Wake
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Specifically, Daddy was trying to keep Kaylee from attracting the attention of a reaper with a grudge against him.

• Deal with the Devil: The plot of My Soul to Save revolves around this.
• Demonic Possession: Hellions can do this with some people, though it takes a lot of energy.
• Domino Revelation: Sure banshees exist, why not reapers, angels, and demons?
• Everything Trying to Kill You: The Neither Realm has plants, fiends, and even animals whom are all deadly to humans.
• Expy: Multimedia company with cartoon squirrels, happy bubbly family friendly entertainment, and HannahMontana look-alike named Eden....hmm sounds familiar! Especially with the whole human-soul trafficking.
• Fantastic Drug: Demon's breath, which is very bad news indeed for normal humans, and not that much better for nonhumans such as Nash.
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Kaylee's reaction to popular jock Nash taking an interest in her.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The titles are a reference to the poem, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.
  • The "My Soul to X" titles:
    • My Soul to Take
    • My Soul to Save
    • My Soul to Keep
    • My Soul to Steal
• Punch-Clock Villain: It's a Job: Being a reaper, a banshee, or even an enchanter is more like an extra career then anything else.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Kaylee's aunt and uncle never tell her about her banshee nature, even after sending her to a mental ward.
• Mama Bear: Harmony Hudson.
• One-Word Title: Reaper.
• Ordinary High-School Student: Kaylee at the start of the series.
• Room Full of Crazy: In the short story prequel Kaylee ends up in a restraint room after having her first scream attack in public.
• Rule of Drama: It stinks of this in the prequel and first book.
• Our Banshees Are Louder: She has an inhuman wail that she really has problems stopping.
• Sensor Character: Sense Death: Kaylee's fae-side automatically allows her to sense the presence of death.
• Sibling Triangle: It seems to be going in this direction, with Tod showing feelings for Kaylee, who's dating his brother.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: You can't help but feel bad for Kaylee's plight ...at first anyway. By My Soul to Save it's toned down a lot.
• Take Me Instead: Tod. See above.
• Teen Drama: It takes place in a High-School setting where most characters are just under 18 yrs of age.
• Urban Fantasy
• You Can't Fight Fate: Everyone has a firmly fixed moment when they will die; unless the Netherworld is involved, this cannot be averted unless someone else dies in their place.