Reviews
Soul of the Saviour
The Lord Augustine and the Lady Vittoria request the honor of your presence at their Wedding.
Venue: The House of Bardo
Date: Time is not observed in the Bardo. Please arrive promptly.
Dress: No hell-skins permitted. You must at least appear human.
Gifts: Sacrifice, virginity and compromise will be accepted but souls are, of course, preferred.
What to expect? Ceremony, combat, and deadly sin — all explored intimately.
Do you have any food allergies? We do not care.
Other guests? Saxon Payne and... well... you are going to have to show up to find that out, aren't you.
What to leave behind? Any idea that you think you know where this is going.
Please be advised that both Heaven and Hell have confirmed their attendance. The management accepts no responsibility for loss of life, sanity, memory, or anything you may have previously considered permanent, precious or sacred.
This invitation has been brought to you by Soul of the Saviour, Book 5 of The Dark Photography Folio.
Please RSVP by pricking your finger, then pressing the AVAILABLE ON AMAZON button.
Author Swinn Daniels proceeds to intrigue readers as the mysterious Haiku takes a larger role in this fifth novel in the Dark Photography Folio series. Providing not only Haiku’s origin and love story, we are also introduced to the reverberating consequences from the party in Paris, as the effects spill into this read and Cassie takes a turn for the worst.
Saxon Payne was mourned by all, lost courageously, the series seemed to have lost its pillar in Heart of the Warrior. Yet as Soul of the Saviour opens we find Saxon ostensibly rising from the dead after spending the last five years in the Himalayas. Learning from the master himself, Saxon emerges a changed man. Thought to have been dead, Payne returns to familiar series faces with an invitation to photograph a wedding. But not just any wedding, a wedding in The Bardo, the place between heaven and hell as Augustine and Vittoria are set to wed.
Taking on more of a fantastical spin, Daniels digs deeper into his abilities as a writer. Crafting an exceptional story peppered with creatures from heaven and hell, earth and imagination, Soul of the Saviour offers a wedding for the ages.
Shedding additional light on Martin’s story, and skill, readers jump between five years ago, ten years ago, and now as we slowly piece together the evolving story Daniels pens. With the very wedding invitation serving as a gateway to the nuptials, Saxon jumps right in.
Soul of the Saviour is a communion of angels and demons, all contained within the Bardo, in their human form, as Saxon and friends fight to the finale. Hiding secrets, spawn, and creatures beyond our wildest imagination, Daniels brings his fantasies to life, for readers to enjoy once again.
Soul of the Saviour drops you into a wild mix of brutal training grounds, smoky alleys, ancient magic, and the strange heat of Hell itself. The book follows Saxon Payne as he crawls back into life after years in a mystical retreat. It weaves through his past, the rise of lethally gifted assassins, demonic lovers, grim prisons, tender memories, and the looming clash between Heaven, Hell, and everything in between. It moves fast and swings between action, horror, and raw intimacy. Sometimes it feels like half spiritual odyssey and half grindhouse myth. I found myself swept up in the momentum because the story rarely slows down enough for you to catch your breath.
The writing goes for broke. Scenes in Hell’s kitchens shimmer with disgusting brilliance, and scenes of training in the mountains bristle with physical grit and stillness. There is a real commitment to showing bodies under strain and souls under pressure. The prose jumps from grim to tender in a heartbeat, and it gave me that sense of watching someone flip through different emotional filters just to see what hits hardest. The violence is bold. The sensuality is bold. The humor sneaks in with a wink. I liked how messy it all felt, because it made the characters feel lived-in and not staged.
The whole thread around becoming more than human through suffering made me uneasy and fascinated at the same time. I found myself rooting for characters who should have terrified me and shaking my head at choices that were obviously doomed. The story loves duality. Hope beside despair. Faith beside hunger. Love beside something darker and stranger. Sometimes it veers into excess, and sometimes the emotional beats come so fast I had to take a moment to reorient. But even then, I felt drawn along by the sheer confidence of the storytelling. It feels like the author trusts you to surf the chaos, and I liked that.
By the end, I felt satisfied and also curious because the book leaves a lot of questions humming under the surface. I would recommend Soul of the Saviour to readers who enjoy high-energy dark fantasy, intense character arcs, sharp edges, and worlds that blend myth with modern grit. If you like stories that mix heart with horror and beauty with brutality, this one will keep you turning pages long after you planned to stop.
As I read each book in The Dark Photography Folio, I was increasingly impressed as the scope and the stakes became more vast and more intense. Daniels does not disappoint with this final installment, and somehow manages to bring it all together in a superb and satisfying way. First, however, the plot goes to darker and more desperate places and the characters are pushed to their limits and beyond. Saxon returns to the real world to find his friends in dire trouble and chaos brewing. He is such a remarkable protagonist, as even though he has gained greater skills and wisdom he is still achingly human. He loves deeply, retains the capacity for surprise and temptation, and battles on with courage and grit. Martin's backstory is wickedly disturbing and I couldn't wait to see what he would do next. The evolution of the relationship between Haiku and Charlie is intoxicating and yet very touching. All of the characters are complex and never stagnant, and Daniel's prose guides the story with rich imagination and dark humour. Supernatural elements abound, and are handled with artistry. His descriptive writing puts you THERE.
I recommend reading all of these books as one epic story- it's a wild ride!
Swinn Daniels delivers an unforgettable literary finale with Soul of the Saviour, the fifth and final installment of The Dark Photography Folio.
Buckle up for a wild ride as we follow Saxon Payne, once presumed dead, on an extraordinary journey of return. After years of intense martial arts training deep in the Himalayas, Saxon resurfaces, drawn back into a web of personal connections and offered an unbelievable opportunity to photograph a wedding... in hell. The characters he encounters there are unlike anything you’ve ever imagined. They are outrageous, vulgar, seductive and endlessly compelling.
No Dark Photography book would be complete without Daniels’ signature fight scenes and Soul of the Saviour delivers. The action is written with precision and imagination from the creatures to the choreography, it delivers a tension that keeps you glued to the page.
This final chapter is wildly entertaining, unexpectedly funny and an absolutely perfect conclusion to the series. Every thread is tied together with care and the fates of each character unfold in ways both surprising and satisfying. I was blown away by how powerfully it all came together.
I can’t recommend Daniels’ books enough to readers who crave riveting storytelling, unforgettable characters and worlds where every decision carries weight, often with life-or-death consequences. From start to finish, this series is a thrilling ride. Don’t miss out, start your journey now. You won’t regret it!