Soul Switch

Different Dragon #2

by Bill Hiatt

DL is used to his life being turned upside down by the supernatural. He has an inner dragon. The love of his life, Ekaterina, is a vampire. His best friend, Max, is a sorcerer in training. They live together in an old house still haunted by the ghost of the previous owner. Yet when Max’s girlfriend Adreanna is kidnapped, DL’s life becomes even stranger. Rescuing her means following a crazed spellcaster into an unknown world without having a clue of what perils they will face. They don’t even know if they can ever return. How much is Max willing to do for love? How much is DL willing to do for friendship? Their limits will be tested in ways they never imagined.

428 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 16, 2018

About the author

Bill Hiatt has been teaching English at Beverly Hills High School since 1981--long enough for some of his current students to be children of his former students. (It's a good thing that doesn't make him feel old--much!) Bill also sponsored the high school's literary magazine from 1992 until June of 2012, which gave him the opportunity to work with a number of young aspiring writers.

Although teaching has been and remains Bill's first love, he has also been drawn to creative writing of various sorts. From high school on, he wrote short stories, a little poetry, and an earlier novel, finished in 1982. By that point, the increasing demands of teaching kept him from pursuing writing as actively as he would have liked, but his impulse to write continued to poke him from somewhere in the back of his mind. A few years ago a particular group of students inspired him to create grammar tests in the form of short stories, with the students themselves as characters. In some cases he got so caught up in the writing that he stayed up all night to finish the material. His students enjoyed the stories so much that they actually looked forward to grammar tests--and they scored higher on the semester grammar final than any of his previous classes! Their response to his writing made Bill wonder if there was a way to find time to write and still be the kind of teacher he wanted to be.

Another force pulling Bill in the direction of writing has been (ironically) teaching, particularly his consistent advice to students to get outside their comfort zones and follow their dreams--advice he realized was somewhat hypocritical if he wasn't following it himself. After all, teaching, though certainly his most important dream, is well inside his comfort zone by now. Publishing, on the other hand, is a different kind of exposure, more scary in some ways and definitely outside his comfort zone. Authors, regardless of the genre in which they write, reveal much about themselves every time they publish; their work is a part of them, and maybe not a part that they have shared with other people before. Also, authors have to be willing to face rejection; regardless of the nature or quality of a book, not everyone is going to like it. Despite the risks involved, Bill eventually realized he needed to follow his own advice if he really wanted his students to follow it. After that, he squeezed in a little time to write each day, and eventually he finished another novel. He hopes his readers will enjoy reading his work as much as he enjoys creating it, and he hopes that his example may encourage more of his students to push themselves a little to get what they really want out of life.

Reviews

[John-Torleif Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of elements that I really like, but I thought that it fell into a pattern that just made the book feel LONG (and not in a good way). Fantasy books so often use some sort of great magic to miraculously save the day in a way that defies explanation, or even the rules of the magic system involved. This too often, makes the sacrifices of the characters feel less meaningful.

While I thought that there were several times that our heroes seemingly pulled ridiculous “impossible” magic out of the air to save the day at the last minute - I found that Dubh’s use of this was far worse, and made the whole book that much less believable. Every time our heroes met up with Dubh, they would be able to beat off his attacks, and yet, he would somehow be able to disappear to wreak his havoc again. It went from exciting to really old very fast.

Added to that, I may have missed something important while rolling my eyes at the absolutely unrealistic way that Morfesa didn’t question anything while in Tir n’NOg, but the events of this whole book revolved around that scene and yet, there was no clear indication that Dubh was granted access to Merlin’s grimoire. Suddenly he was able to steal the book by giving it to another sidhe, even though there was no indication of how that sidhe got there, or even that he could do something like that with all of the protections around the book - I would have thought that there would have been many more safeguards than what we saw, and again it just made the whole thing unbelievable.

Ultimately, while many of the action scenes were enjoyable and fun to read, this book failed to be internally consistent so many times that I felt like I was reading the equivalent of a bad superhero movie - lots of explosions and magic to distract from the fact that it wasn’t really a good plot.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

[The Mysterious Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with DL (short for Different Dragon, which explains why he goes by “DL” - if only the bureaucrats hadn’t translated from the Korean original, “Daelun Yong”), his then new girlfriend, the beautiful vampire Ekaterina, his then new friend Max who becomes a sorcerer in that book, and Max’s family (both corporeal and non) including friends and allies introduced (such as Morfesa who eventually became a part-time tutor of Max), in Different Lee, the first book of Bill Hiatt’s Different Dragons series (separately reviewed). Now, in Soul Switch, DL, Ekaterina and Max are back. Max’s new girlfriend had been kidnapped and the gang is off to save her. Of course things aren’t that simple in this wonderful world created by the author with its blend of mythologies from many different cultures in an urban setting. We don’t have the same gang of supporting characters (last time it was Merlin, the original Lady of the Lake, all four druids of Tír na nÓg as allies and Drakula’s sorcerer-vampire brother as the “big baddie”) but the opposition this time is at least as tough (though I won’t give away who is here this time - other than to comment “very cool”). Add that plus other great new supporting characters and a plot that works absolutely perfectly. The result is one heck of a fantastic book. But for the fact that I’m literally dictating this review to my husband from my hospital bed I could go on and on with praises - the book definitely deserves it. Since I can’t do that I will simply note that the book is most definitely one to read, it is easy to highly recommend.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 2nd book in the series was a pretty big disappointment after reading the first one(Different Lee). The first book showed promise of a well crafted, thought out storyline but this second book just took it and threw it out the window. I don't know if Mr. Hiatt figured that by adding 201 more pages to the length of this book over the first somehow made it better but it certainly didn't in my opinion. I get that the genre is fantasy but this just kept getting more and more drawn out and unwieldy with every page. The best part of the book was the ending in that I thought, thank you, this is finally over.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soul Switch for me was an enjoyable read. It was a little hard to follow at first and I had difficulty following the story line and characters as I had not read the first book in the series. Not the authors fault but mine. The main characters were interesting and it was amazing how far they would go for their love ones. Be sure you read Different Lee, Different Dragons 1 before you start this book. Received a copy from Hidden Gems and this is my voluntary and honest review.

[Daryl M Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read

Loved this book! The story kept getting bigger and bigger! The adventure kept soaring to greater heights! If you like magic, Norse gods and vampires read this book!