Kindle Edition Amazon Amazon link to The Soul Collector Category:  Young Adult/Teen Publisher: Shadowfall Publications ISBN-10:  1936457083 Type: Fiction Pages: 210 Copyright: November 2, 2011 ISBN-13: 9781936457083 Abby McNabb is an 11 yr old girl who thinks her father is crazy until she sees a ghost who shows her the chilling and exciting truth. Excerpt Abby McNabb is a typical sixth grader. She hates her hair, thinks her mom is too strict, envies her best friend…Oh, and Abby's father is crazy. Andy McNabb is a famous author known for his investigations of aliens, ghosts and all things paranormal. This embarrasses Abby to no end, until the day he takes her on one of his learning adventures … and for the first time in her life, she sees a ghost, too. The ghost needs Abby's help to make Andy remember his birthplace: a star named Gibeon, which crashed to earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. As Abby, along with her friend Claudia and cousin, Chase, work to uncover the truth about her father's past and his future, she is faced with losing him forever when destiny pushes him toward his forgotten life. Join Abby and her loving but troubled father as she learns what it means to believe in make-believe and trust what you cannot see.

Imaginative Tale for Young Adults
The Soul Collector from Tracy Carbone is a YA novel that really delivers the goods to young readers. Since Carbone and her daughter live in Massachusetts near the real Mystery Hill (where much of the action takes place in the novel), her knowledge of the area brings an air of authenticity to the plotting which can be grounding and comforting, especially when you are trying to convince impressionable readers that they could be visited by beings from another planet. And her depiction of Abbey is also spot on; from the young girl's fear of abandonment to the huge moral dilemma she faces, readers will have no problems identifying and even sympathizing with Abby's emotional struggles.

Parents should also be delighted with the teaching moments Carbone has sprinkled through out the story, covering topics dealing with history, astronomy, divorce, bullying, and the natures of faith and love. Carbone approaches each of these topics prudently using historical or scientific facts when appropriate and an unbiased hand when dealing with personal matters, thus allowing the young readers to make their own judgments and come to their own conclusions.

With The Soul Collector, Carbone has not only written a story that is exciting from its first pages, but one that is steeped with enough imagination to keep anyone over the age of ten wide eyed and engrossed throughout the tale. I can't think of a better novel to introduce to young readers to get their imaginations kick started and to possibly put them on a path to a lifetime of adventurous reading.