Sixteen Souls: The "TikTok made me buy it" sensation dubbed Heartstopper with ghosts!

Product Information

You’re welcome to join the discussion if you’ve read it before or during the month with the book club. Please note that there may be spoilers if you’ve not read the book! If you are looking for a queer paranormal fantasy for the spooky season, I highly recommend reading Sixteen Souls. Aparte de eso, es una novela bastante amena de leer, ligera y entretenida, con representacion de personajes con caracteristicas no tan tipicas de los heroes protagonistas (el prota usa protesis de pierna porque se las tuvieron que amputar por una enfermedad) y unas relaciones logicas y organicas. Our loveably endearing cast of characters helped with that too. Aside from the obvious villains and a few of the Mouldy Oldies (old spirits who essentially govern the city’s ghost residents) , I pretty much loved them all. Particularly Charlie (our reluctant, ghost seeing MC) and his spectral, ride or die besties Ollie and Heather— as well as the highly amusing George Villiers, who won me over with his rather amusing antics. I also liked fellow seer Sam whose adorably sweet romance with Charlie gave me supernatural Heartstopper vibes that I’m excited to see more of.

These are the sons of Zilpah, [the maid] whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter [when she married Jacob]; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons [two sons and fourteen grandchildren]. Rosie Talbot was a student on our six-month Writing Your Novel course in 2019. Her debut YA novel Sixteen Souls became popular on TikTok (generating more than 250,000 views) and garnered the attention of publisher Yasmin Morrissey at Scholastic. Rosie now has a two-book deal with Scholastic, and Sixteen Souls was published 13 Oct 2022 . Hear how Rosie went from being set on self publishing to signing with Scholastic just months before release. A lover of dark and tightly woven stories, Rosie is inspired by creepy things in junk shops, haunted houses and strange magic. She is a graduate of Curtis Brown Creative and Write Mentor.I really loved reading this book. It has a thrilling plot, fascinating world-building and amazing character development. The writing is also great. And not to forget the queer representation. Not only are the main characters queer but also a bunch of the side characters. Rosie Chats to Ella McLeod and Alexis B Preston about sensational cat names, badgers in the garden and pigeons being the best. Yet, not everything goes to plan. Unlike some books, where everything just happens to work out, against all the odds, Talbot uses realism to its strength. Not every plan they make is pulled off, not every solution they find is correct, and not every villain they unveil is the right villain. It was fundamental to the novel’s conception. The world is a diverse place and I’ve always wanted my storytelling to reflect that, but it was very important for me to include representation in a way that doesn’t take up space that isn’t mine to occupy. As well as being gay, my protagonist Charlie is an amputee. Disabled rep is something I would love to see more of in fiction, so it just seemed natural to include it in mine. But Sixteen Souls isn’t a story about being an amputee, in the same way it’s not a book about what it’s like to be a gay teenager. Those are just aspects of Charlie’s bodymind and personal circumstances that affect his day to day life.

These were the sons of Zilpah, the servant given to Leah by her father, Laban. The number of Jacob’s descendants through Zilpah was sixteen. We caught up with Rosie to find out more about the inspiration behind her supernatural debut and talk all things BookTok and Bookstagram. Sixteen-year-old Charlie Frith has problems. His crush is dating someone else, his sisters have glitter-bombed his prosthesis (again), and he's a seer-of-spirits in York, the most haunted city in England, and all his friends are ghosts.Rosie Talbot, known on BookTok as @merrowchild , has finally released her debut YA novel, Sixteen Souls with Scholastic after an unusual publishing journey. Deliciously dark” - Cynthia Murphy, author of Last One to Die, Win Lose Kill Die and The Midnight Game

These were the sons of Zilpah—whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah—that she bore to Jacob: sixteen persons. And even though Sam and Charlie will not see eye to eye at first, when ghosts start disappearing in York, they will have to work together to find how to stop this.

Charlie is a seer. This means quite simply that he can see ghosts. He can not really talk to anyone about it until he meets Sam. These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter: and these she bore to Jacob, even sixteen souls. Charlie, as a main character, was brilliantly written. As I said earlier -- and I'll probably keep repeating, because it's so important – he is relatable and interesting, capable of keeping your attention, stirring your emotions, and connecting with the reader in a way that is VITAL to a good book. I've read so many books with promising plots, but dull main characters, and there was NO risk of this here.

The reason why I am telling you all of this is to illustrate that I, as a mood reader, was basically set up to resent/dislike this book because I was being 'forced' to read it at a time where I could barely read anything at all, and then stressing about having to interview the author of a book I might not like and/or hadn't finished reading... Sixteen Souls: Book 2: Twelve Bones by Rosie Talbot published by Scholastic @ ForbiddenPlanet.com - UK and Worldwide Cult Entertainment MegastoreThese are the children of Zilpah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah; these she bore to Jacob—sixteen persons in all. These were all sons from Zilpah, whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah. She bore these sixteen children for Jacob. The book title's marketing appendix is “TikTok made me buy it” and this is a good indication of who the target audience is. The plot is very fast and very dense. There's always something happening and barely a time to rest. Maybe I'm already to old but I was longing for some kind of breather chapter every now and then. Reading this book is like riding a rollercoaster twenty times in a row nonstop. It's a little bit exhausting. At least for me. I know of people who would scream for a twenty-first ride. I have shared a few of Charlie's life experiences, and he was written with such sensitivity, clarity, and realism that it was easy to connect to him right from the beginning. Sixteen Souls is the perfect mix of eerie and heartwarming. With vivid characters, fierce friendships and flawless twists, this book immediately pulled me in – I laughed, teared up and could not put it down. YA fantasy readers and ghost-story lovers, this is for you.”