Lightbreaker: Codex of Souls

By Mark Teppo

Markham has returned to Seattle, searching for Katarina, the girl who, a decade ago, touched his soul, literally tearing it from his body. But what he discovers upon arriving is dark magick — of a most ancient and destructive kind! An encounter with a desperate spirit, leaping destructively from host to host, sets Markham on the trail of secretive cabal of magicians seeking to punch a hole through heaven, extinguishing forever the divine spark. Armed with the Chorus, a phantasmal chain of human souls he wields as a weapon of will, Markham must engage in a magickal battle with earth-shattering stakes! Markum must delve deep into his past, calling on every aspect of his occult training for there to be any hope of a future. But delve he must, for Markham is a veneficus, a spirit thief, the Lightbreaker...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Night Shade Books
• Release date: Sep 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781597802659

Mark Teppo

Mark Teppo is the author of the Codex of Souls urban fantasy series and the hypertext dream narrative The Potemkin Mosaic. He is also a co-author of The Mongoliad trilogy. His next book is an eco-thriller entitled Earth Thirst.

Reviews for Lightbreaker

[ladycato · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's noteworthy that the spine of this book labels it as fantasy/horror, not just urban fantasy. There's a disturbingly dark mood to the book--all shadows, corruption, and lost souls--and therefore the gray environment of the Pacific northwest is well-suited to the book. It's also an environment familiar to me, which makes me relate to the book in a personal way.Lightbreaker moves along fast. So fast, that it sometimes feels like the middle book of a series and not the first book, like it assumed I already knew characters and circumstances. This threw me off at first, but I soon got into the groove. The explanations felt long-winded at times, though the subject matter was interesting, relying heavily on Aleister Crowley, the Book of Thoth, and tarot.Markham is very much an anti-hero. He feels remote, and that may be a good thing because of the darkness of his character. I wanted to understand him more and that frustrated me at times; by the end, it was clear it was written this way with intent, since Markham is just as frustrated about his own nature and choices. I got to spend time with the author recently and that also provided me with behind-the-scenes perspective on the series. I would definitely like to read on and see how the books develop.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book I'd like to return to for a re-read, some day. From the author's portrait inside the front cover you'd swear that he's lightweight. Nope, deep, ceremonial magical stuff here, the bloody messy stuff with death, blood and souls here. It starts when Markham, on the hunt for a woman who injured his soul years ago and left him to pick up the pieces, has a deer cross his path, only this deer has a passenger and that passenger is a human soul. Following the clues brings him to a bigger mess and a much messier plan. And it's all a mess. Somehow he got handed the clues to the solution and with the power that he has the responsibility is his.It's a dark messy occult novel, the end was vaguely unsatisfying but I do want more.