Blog Tour! Transcendence by CJ Omololu

Title: Transcendence
Author: CJ Omololu
Publisher: Walker & Company
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: ARC provided by Publisher

When a visit to the Tower of London triggers an overwhelmingly real vision of a beheading that occurred centuries before, Cole Ryan fears she is losing her mind. A mysterious boy, Griffon Hall, comes to her aid, but the intensity of their immediate connection seems to open the floodgate of memories even wider.

As their feelings grow, Griffon reveals their common bond as members of the Akhet—an elite group of people who can remember past lives and use their collected wisdom for the good of the world. But not all Akhet are altruistic, and a rogue is after Cole to avenge their shared past. Now in extreme danger, Cole must piece together clues from many lifetimes. What she finds could ruin her chance at a future with Griffon, but risking his love may be the only way to save them both.

Full of danger, romance, and intrigue, Transcendence breathes new life into a perpetually fascinating question: What would you do with another life to live?

My thoughts: 

There’s just something so versatile about the topic of reincarnation. And there is so many things that authors can do with it! I haven’t read many books dealing with reincarnation but my fascination with the theme continues to grow! I would have to say that Transcendence is one of the best reincarnation books I’ve read yet! I loved the setting, the characters, the story line and the little surprises that were thrown in here and there!

The basic storyline of Transcendence is that everyone is reincarnated throughout the centuries and those who are able to remember their past lives are called the Akhet. The Akhet don’t start off remembering everything but during one of their lifetimes they begin to remember their past lives. In Transcendence, Cole begins to remember bits and pieces of her past lives while she is on a trip to London. Soon it becomes clear that an acquaintance from one of her past lives is trying to exact revenge on her!

Cole is a pretty awesome character! She’s going through life like a normal teenager except she’s a brilliant cello player and then she starts remembering scenes from her past lives. My favorite of her past lives is when she is beheaded in England during the Tudor era. She’s also very naive but I don’t mean this in a bad way. The whole notion of the Akhet is so very new to her that she thinks is strange that someone could hold a grudge against her for so long.

Griffon, the guy she meets while in London, acts as her guide through becoming Akhet. He is so cute and as a reader, I could tell that he really liked her right from the beginning. What I thought was the most amusing was his relationship with his mom. Since his mom is also Akhet, he called her by her first name and she only acted as a hands-off guardian, allowing him the freedom to do as he pleased. Although I really loved the story, I felt like Griffon held back too much information from Cole which kind of left her one her own to figure out certain things.

There are so many elements that I love about this story! I do have to say that the old English flash backs were so of my favorites! I have to give Transcendence 4 hearts for really incorporating a lot of surprises into this story!

Review- Remembrance

Title: Remembrance
Author: Michelle Madow
Publisher: Dreamscape Publishing
Find it here: Amazon, Goodreads
Source: eBook compliments of the author

New Hampshire high school junior Lizzie Davenport has been reincarnated from Regency Era, England ... but she doesn't know it yet.

Then Drew Carmichael transfers into Lizzie's school at the beginning of the year, and she feels a connection to him, almost like she knows him. She can't stop thinking about him, but whenever she tries talking with him about the mysteries behind her feelings, he makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with her. Reaching him is even more difficult because she has a boyfriend, Jeremy, who has started to become full of himself after being elected co-captain of the varsity soccer team, and her flirtatious best friend Chelsea starts dating Drew soon after his arrival. So why can't she seem to get him out of her mind?

Even though Lizzie knows she should let go of her fascination with Drew, the pair of them soon find that fighting fate isn't going to be easy.

My thoughts:

I really love stories dealing with love that is so strong that transcend time in the hopes that it will work out int the future.  I also love stories dealing with reincarnation, history and relics from the past.

After meeting the very dark and mysterious Drew, Lizzie start to have weird dreams and flashes from the past that seem very real to her.  She is also insanely attracted to him, unlike anything she has ever felt.  She starts to risk everything she has ever known for a guy she barley knows but has a deep connection with.

I really enjoyed Lizzie and the connections she had with the dress and the Jane Austen books that seemed to belong to her in another life.  I wish there was more to it though.  I wanted to know the history of the dress and why it was so important to her.  I also would have liked the Jane Austen books to have played more of a part in the story.  I also wanted to know more about the shop keeper and the significance of her importance.  I felt like he could have guided her more.

Even though I enjoyed the story, I felt like it is very typical of many YA novels out there.  There's the instant love and attraction between two character, the whole "I like him but I can't do anything about it because my best friend saw him first", and the main character who is just very indecisive.  I want to read a story about a very strong and independent girl who will risk everything for love that she knows is true no matter what the consequences.

With all that said, I still really enjoyed the book! I don't know if it's a series or not, but I thought that it make a good stand alone book.