This was a very interesting concept. But personally it was not executed the way I expected it to. Meaning, I was expecting some sort of conflict, twist, some sort of surprise. This fell flat for me and I was very disappointed.

In Dying to Live we have a medical scientist become reincarnated as a newborn baby. This concept really intrigued me, particularly with the baby having the memories of their former life. I was intrigued to read this to see how this individual would cope with having the memories, feelings and thoughts of another life whilst being trapped in a baby and then a child's body - particularly with the plot hinting towards unusual abilities.

The plot itself I thought was fantastic. I liked the other characters in the book - we met children / teenagers who also had different abilities.

Unfortunately for me, and I do appreciate it was a proof copy, but there were so many words pushed together, ends of sentences or paragraphs missing or added to other pages - it was just really frustrating to read.
Also, I felt the first bit was a bit longer than it needed to be and then the main part of the story rushed in places.

Great concept but for me, not executed as well as I had hoped.

I am grateful to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an ARC of this book as on the whole, I did enjoy it.

This is a totally different and unique book. The whole idea of reincarnation and if you could remember what you did in a past life could you continue on and complete your life's work.
The idea of the institute is not new and reminded me somewhat of The X Men but this is different in so many ways.
The central theme and ideas are really intriguing and it is a book that I could not put down.

This was a case of great concept but poor execution. I wasn't too compelled by the writing and I thought I could see where the plot was going, but it ended up being underwhelming for me. The atmosphere this book was trying to create was one of curiosity and mystery, but i felt quite bored. None of the characters really jumped out at me and the writing was quite slow paced.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an e-arc!

The concept was amazing, and I really had high hopes for this when I saw the synopsis and read the first chapter. Unfortunately, the concept was very poorly executed and the entire story felt insanely rushed. There could have been 2 books with the details of Dying to Live being fleshed out significantly more. Instead it felt incomplete and like it had been hastily put together. There were also several grammatical and punctuation errors, causing me to miss that several lines of dialogue were actually dialogue until the end of the character speaking.

2.5 Stars

This novel is an interesting exploration into human potential. The protagonist is a ninety-two year old Nobel Laureate in medical research who goes to sleep in her nursing home bed and wakes up in an infant body only minutes after being born. Incredibly, her consciousness of the details of her “past” life is intact as she begins to cope with her physical limitations as a newborn. Within hours she is talking and in days she is walking. The story unfolds as Esme Montgomery (formerly Esther Windom) lives her “new” life among other gifted and talented students at an exclusive school in Switzerland. Her focus now is researching paranormal abilities, reincarnation and cancer, culminating in another brilliant medical breakthrough.

While the premise of the book is intriguing, the third person narrative reads more like a report, perhaps because of the author’s extensive experience in both print and broadcast journalism. Unfortunately this makes for rather dull reading at times and one-dimensional characters. Also, through no fault of the author, this uncorrected, pre-publication novel is rife with errors (broken sentences showing up out of order within the same or even subsequent paragraphs and clusters of 2-6 words missing the appropriate spacing) which made it very challenging to read.

My final concern is that of all the students’ extraordinary abilities, the author chose to highlight the one troubled student who had the least interesting (to me) talent. Esme spends a great deal of time supervising his work and addressing his personality issues.

Overall, while the premise is fascinating and I can embrace the paranormal aspects of the novel, I can’t recommend this book because the writing felt flat and uninspired.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

Biology and genetics feature in this softly sweet sf novel and with some work, I think this new writer could write stories in the vein of Kate Wilhelm or Nancy Kress.

However, this story suffers dullness. The plot is a straightforward telling with no surprises and no central conflict. The protagonist is a reincarnated Mary Sue who can speak full sentences merely hours after she has been born. She needs some adversity and flaws to overcome. In fact, all but one character have idyllic lives. Even the house caretaker is a jack of all trades—right down to having been ordained a minister from an online church. That characterization is pretty funny, but has no zing or humor in the delivery. He, like the rest, is pretty wooden. The world building complements the bland Mary Sue characters and flatliner plot. A closeted—and cosseted—life in a castle in the gorgeous Swiss alps, being served food worthy of a sophisticated foodie. And none of the kids throw a fit for hamburgers, pizza, or even anything prosaic like hot pockets or Kraft macaroni and cheese! That’s weird. It’s almost supernatural.

I don’t care for the supernatural in my science fiction. Paranormal oddities involving levitation had me lifting a brow. I was hesitant about the reincarnation, aspect too. As is, it didn’t work for me as there is no scientific explanation for it.

The first thing that made me do a double take was nothing even story-related. It was a semicolon. After that, I made an effort to read as quickly as possible to avoid getting hung up on flaws. The only glaring inconsistency I saw was towards the end where a therapist turns into a psychiatrist a paragraph later.

This first-book offering is simple story that will appeal to some. I prefer Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, Korean, and even green eggs and ham! But sometimes I like oatmeal with butter and brown sugar. The story isn’t awful, but I can’t recommend it as being representative of my taste.

Thanks to the author and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my opinion.

dnf on page 14

Our protagonist wakes up, thinking she's still in the retirement home but wondering why her body is even weirder than normal, when she realises she happens to be a baby - but with the consciousness of a woman who has lived a full life.

As you can see I did not get very far.
I requested this because the premise sounded interesting, and I still think it does. However, while I understand that arcs may be uncorrected proofs, this didn't feel like a book but more like a manuscript. And a badly written one at that.
There are multiple grammar errors, wrong punctuation, and the writing as such reminded me of my own writing as I first started out. Flat. Always stating the obvious, not going deeper, not engaging the reader. There is no way I am going to read this for 230+ pages.

I can't even say if I would read further stuff from the author in the future because it does not feel as if they have found their voice yet, and a lot of writing needs to be done to find one.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

I am reluctant to be too critical about an ARC because it is not the finished article, but I do hope this book is proof read again before being published, it certainly needs to be. The story itself, and the idea behind it was very original, and was enjoyable, but could have been more punchy I think. Overall not a bad book, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me. Sorry to say.

What would you do if you woke up as a newborn with all the memories of a lifetime of being an adult? Nobel Laureate Dr. Esther Windom finds herself in this situation. How would she break it to her adoring parents? How will she cope starting over as a baby? We find the answers as we follow Esther on her journey as she finds her way in this new life and meets others with their own unique abilities. Although this book has the potential of being the seed of an exciting new team of super heroes, it sticks to the life of the main character, Esther Windom. An interesting premise but it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

Thank you Barbara Macpherson Reyelts, Netgalley and Atmosphere Press for this ARC.

I had to remove three stars because this novel tells instead of showing, and also because there is plenty of poor grammar. There are multiple instances of fragments of sentences moved to the wrong place, and 3-6 words stuck together as if they are one word. This all takes people out of what could have been a good book. So instead of being good, this book is just ok.

We’ve seen books about characters between life and death, their narrative as they cling to life or once they pass. But it is completely new to read a character who has been reincarnated as a baby, and knows it. It gives a whole new perspective on life. It is comforting and a bit frightening, but I do think that may be where the idea of dejavu comes from.

I did think it was a good premise and it touched on some important topics, however I felt it was a little rushed and maybe a bit too out there for my head to really take stock of.