Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

Blurb:

”For fans of The Matrix and Memento, a twisty, exciting adventure!” –Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series

The basis for the major motion picture Infinite

Discovered as three notebooks in an antique store in Rome at the turn of the millennium, The Reincarnationist Papers offers a tantalizing glimpse into the Cognomina, a secret society of people who possess total recall of their past lives.

Evan
Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete
memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He
fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She
recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much
older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else
she must share with Evan — she is a member of the secretive Cognomina.
They are, in effect, immortals — compiling experiences and skills over
lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive
history over centuries.

Poppy invites Evan into the Cognomina, but he must face their tests before entering this mysterious society as their equal.

Review:

I love twisty stories about past lives and secret organizations, so the synopsis of The Reincarnationist Papers grabbed my attention right away. The story follows a fellow named Evan Michaels, a professional arsonist-for-hire. Evan, however, is different than most people in that he is living with three sets of memories inside of his head: his current life and the complete memories of two other people. He suspects that he’s crazy and lives his life the best he can.

But then he meets Poppy, who recognizes Evan for what he really is: someone who has complete recall of their past lives. As it turns out, Poppy has lived seven consecutive lives, so in this way, she’s much older than Evan. She subsequently invites him to apply to a secret society called the Cognomina, a group for people who are like the both of them: immortals who recall all of their past lives. But first, Evan has to go through a series of tests to prove that he is, in fact, one of them, and in so doing, we go more in-depth into his past lives as well as the others in the society via the narrative and flashbacks. I found the drama and the interwoven secrets between the Cognomina members throughout their many lives to be compelling and a lot of fun.

What was entertaining about this book is that it felt like it was a non-fiction story — a sort of documentary in which the author comes across these “Reincarnationist Papers” in an antique bookstore in Rome and is now sharing those notebooks in book format for all of us to read and ponder. So in this way, I found the world-building to be phenomenal. I thought this aspect was such a unique and refreshing take on the past life genre and really added to the story’s overall enjoyment. It was fascinating how all of the characters no longer feared death at all because they knew they’d be coming right back. This was quite an interesting philosophy on the overall theme of life after death.

We’re also treated to a delightful set of eccentric and hedonistic personalities in the Cognomina, all of which added an essential element to the story. Each character was captivating and described in such detail that I could easily picture having a conversation with any one of them, resulting in a vivid and atmospheric story. I especially enjoyed the character arc of Evan as he experienced considerable growth throughout the book.

We also learn the origin of the Reincarnationist Papers — who wrote them and why. But that’s all I’ll say on that lest I move into spoiler territory. But I can say that The Reincarnationist Papers is a delightful and enthralling read that makes you ponder who you are, where you come from, and what your responsibilities are to both. Told in alternating perspectives with crisp writing, I found this to be quite a thought-provoking book that I thoroughly enjoyed.

A huge thank you to TK and Blackstone Publishing for providing a review copy of this book.

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Touch is a unique sci-fi/thriller/espionage story that follows an entity known as Kepler, who is referred to as a “ghost”; that is to say, a being who has the ability to jump from one body to another, basically, hijacking the other person’s body. The ghost then lives that person’s life: it drives the person’s car, is married to the person’s spouse, can spend the person’s money, and have sex using the person’s body. The person whose body they take over (the host) is pushed aside and has no memory of anything that has occurred while the ghost is in control. Ghosts can leave a body at any time by simply touching a different person, and the only thing ghosts leave behind when they move on is bewilderment and confusion.

The story takes off when the host body that Kepler was wearing, Josephine Cebula, is brutally murdered. The kicker is that the assassin was not only out to kill Josephine but also Kepler. Kepler now occupies the assassin’s body and is determined to find out the truth about who or what is behind the assassination — and why.

This story kind of reminded me of Every Day by David Levithan, in which the entity wakes up in a new body every day, except they have no control over who they occupy. In this story, our main characters can jump into any body they want, whenever they want.

I loved the original premise of this story, of how the ghosts can live any type of life they want. They can be whoever they want, look however they want and go wherever they want. If you want to, you could be a movie star or even a leader of a country.

Of course, this isn’t so great for the hosts, who can lose days, months, years, or even an entire lifetime to a ghost. Imagine that you’re seventeen-years-old and shake hands with a stranger. The next thing you know, you’re 77 with children and grandchildren, and you don’t remember any of the prior 60 years. So in this way, the story deals with the morality, implications, and ramifications of wearing someone else’s body. Many interesting moral issues were brought up throughout the book, especially those such as free will, identity, and the nature of love. It also raised some interesting questions about the nature of reality.

Have you ever found yourself in another room and forgot why you’re there? Hmm…perhaps a ghost just took a ride in your skin.

I loved the depth in which the author examined the life of a ghost and found it utterly compelling and fascinating. We learned how such an untethered soul survives by stealing the consciousness of others and are, in essence, immortal (unless their host dies before they can touch another person). It struck me that, in a way, Kepler and their kind are a sort of “parasite” and one can certainly understand someone’s desire to eradicate such beings. And that’s the interesting aspect of this story; that though ghosts are indeed parasites, they are also people.

Regardless, however, there are those who hate and fear ghosts and consider them to be nothing more than monsters who steal people’s lives and deserve to be eliminated. But the villain in this story — a serial killer — has motivations much grander and more dangerous than merely eliminating ghosts.

Even though there was quite a bit of body jumping going on in the story as well as numerous flashbacks, I was never confused. I loved journeying along with Kepler as they described their mesmerizing life, both in the past and present. I found this fast-paced story to be so addicting that, even though the book was over 400 pages, I tore through it in two sittings. The gripping storyline and the short chapters helped in that manner.

All in all, this story ranks up among my favorites, especially with its likable yet morally gray protagonist. The writing is beautiful, the plot is utterly unique and engaging, and the story execution flawless. This dark and brilliant story really took me by surprise and did not disappoint. Loved it!

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I think this was one of the Goodread’s Reader’s Choice winners for 2020, and given that I love stories about alternate or parallel universes, the synopsis really caught my attention.

This book ended up being another 5-star read for me, and I found it absolutely phenomenal – magical even. So the story follows Nora Seed, who had hit rock bottom. She’s just gotten fired, her cat just died, she’s estranged from her family, she’s alone (she broke up with her fiancé two days before her wedding), and she’s consumed by regret over the opportunities she didn’t take and the decisions she didn’t make.

She then finds herself thrust into the “In-between” — a place that is between life and death — a place that looks different for everybody. For some, it’s a video store. But for Nora, it is a gigantic library being run by her old library from grade school, Mrs. Elm. But this is no ordinary library, but rather it’s a magical one. Mrs. Elm explains to her that every book contains different versions of her life — different possibilities. How many of us have wondered how our lives might have been different if we’d made certain decisions or didn’t make others.

For instance, what our lives would be like now if we’d just passed on by our current spouse instead of stopping to introduce ourselves. Or maybe what our life would be like if we pursued a dream of playing piano professionally or being a rockstar rather than going into accounting?

Well, Nora has the chance to find out. Each one of the limitless books in the library contains endless possibilities — how her life would have turned out if every one of her decisions had been different. All she has to do is touch a book, and she’s immediately living that life. She can leave any time she becomes disillusioned with that life, but if she finds the right one — a life in which she can be truly happy — she can stay. Of course, it will be up to her to decide exactly what it is that constitutes true or perfect happiness.

But what she does end up doing, is exploring many, many different lives, each with different possibilities and outcomes, and she comes to eye-opening realizations along the way. I loved watching her grow and observe how her beliefs and worldview changes as a result of her new experiences.

I just loved this book on so many levels. I’m guessing many of us have dreamed about a library like this — the ability to have a “do-over” for some of our decisions. This was such an emotional, hard-hitting read with so many important themes here.

This story is about regrets, mistakes, community, giving up, insecurities, unrealized plans, living other’s people’s dreams instead of yours, what-could-have-been, and depression. This is the kind of book that forces you to examine your own life and maybe even ask yourself some pretty hard questions. At least it did for me. It also makes you think about what you can do to live your life in the moment and not dwell on the past – maybe to live a more purposeful life.

One idea that really stuck out for me from this book was that just because a path or decision is different than the one you took, it doesn’t mean it would have been the right one or would have been easier. There was also the idea of the importance of the little things — how a missed cup of coffee with a stranger could change the trajectory of your entire life. So in this way, each big and little decision impacts who we are and what our lives will be like. I think there was a line in the book that went something like: “Never underestimate the big importance of small things.”

It made me wonder how many of us would try stepping into different versions of our lives to try until we find one that really fits. A chance to undo all of our regrets, to take all of those roads not taken. Tough question to answer.

When I finished this dazzling book, all I thought was: wow! It left me breathless, and I immediately declared it a new favorite. This is one of those authentic books that was heart-wrenching in some places and hopeful and heart-mending in others. I loved the short chapters resulting in quite a fast-paced narrative, I thought, though there is also kind of a race-against-the-clock as Nora only has a limited amount of time in the library before it’s gone forever.

This book was ultimately hopeful and uplifting with nuggets of universal truths generously sprinkled throughout, and I really could gush forever about this book. This is the type of story I am always longing to read. I’ll definitely be rereading it in the future — probably sooner rather than later and probably more than once.

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