The Flame Never Dies: Well of Souls #2    by Rachel Vincent Order:  USA  Can Delacorte, 2016 (2016) Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Ricki Marking-Camuto The Flame Never Dies, the second book in Rachel Vincent's Well of Souls series, picks up shortly after The Stars Never Rise ends. There is minimal exposition, so it is best to start at the beginning, especially with a dystopian this unique. Nina Kane is now an outlaw living in the badlands with a rogue group of exorcists. All Nina cares about any more is giving her unborn niece or nephew a chance at life, but with the Well of Souls dried up, that means a sacrifice others are not willing for her to make. She also must deal with two factions of demons after her – the Church and Kastor, a demon ruler whose people follow the exact opposite philosophy of the Church. She and her friends do find help with the nomadic people of the badlands, but before things can start to look up, everything gets much, much worse. For having so little exposition, The Flame Never Dies starts off very slowly. About midway through, things do pick up rapidly, but become incredibly sad for a while before the action-packed race-to-the-finish ending. Nina grows into a very strong character in this installment, and that really helps pull emotions from the reader. I have never cried while reading a YA dystopian, but Vincent had the tears running and my heart pounding during a few intense chapters. The ending, though, made it hard to know what, if anything, was to come. I do hope that Rachel Vincent continues her Well of Souls series. Once it picked up, The Flame Never Dies was an exciting and powerful read that begs for more in this ever unfolding world. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Teens books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews