Dr’s Prasad Vederumundi and Edward Clark embark on a controversial study of NDEs, near death experiences. When they think they’ve discovered the secret to the afterlife, they church is less than thrilled and sends an Italian assassin after Prasad. Together, they and one of Dr. Clark’s former patients work to find out the truth about what happens when we die.

The premise of this book had a lot of protential, but fell a bit short for me. I don’t think there was enough attention given to the assassin or his backstory. It was set up to have so much more meaning, but was just a fleeting glimpse of the overall plot.

I am the first to get behind a science vs. religion thriller (helloooooo Da Vinci Code!) but this lacked depth and ultimately ended too quickly. The resolution came too easily, the ending seemed like a last ditch effort of an explanation and had it been intertwined throughout, I think it would have given the story what it needed to carry itself.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC
3 ⭐️

Overall, the concept and plot was fascinating. The author explained the near death experience concepts sufficiently and with knowledge, but not so technical that the reader isn’t able to follow along. Kind of jumpy on the narration initially, and lots of names introduced early on made it dense. The transition between alternate story lines isn’t clearly mentioned and takes a minute to adjust to without distinct labeling. Dialogue comes off as very structured rather than naturally flowing. There’s a lot of sarcasm and I think more mentions of body language, facial expressions, and laughter/scoffs could help convey the sarcasm in the dialogue. Occasionally the chapters end abruptly, and with little indication that it’s the end. Even the end of the book left me confused, as if there was an inside joke I wasn’t getting.

I wanted a quick paced hard science fiction like AG Riddle but it fell flat. I didn’t want to invest anymore time because the characters were under developed.

In The Eternal Secret, Mary Romasanta crafts a suspenseful and thought-provoking tale that dives deep into the mysteries of life and death. The novel’s strength lies in its speculative exploration of near-death experiences and the potential to control the afterlife, keeping readers on the edge of their seats. While the scientific and spiritual themes are compelling, the abrupt romantic subplot feels out of place, slightly detracting from the otherwise engaging narrative.

Ich habe mich über das Buch sehr gefreut. Es ist nicht nur fließend zum lesen sondern auch sehr spannend.

I wanted to like this. The premise was intriguing, writing was pretty good, but the romance aspect was too left field for me, and I lost interest. Not my cup of tea.

Minor spoiler alert at the end of the review.

What I really liked about this book was that it was well paced and it sucked you in pretty much straight away. I really enjoyed the speculative aspect of this novel. I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in a suspenseful mystery novel with speculative elements. I gave this book 3.75 stars (rounded up to 4).

This book is about two doctors - one neurologist (Dr. Vedurmudi) and a psychiatrist (Dr. Clark) - and their work research near dead experiences. The interplay between science and spirituality (talks about near dead experiences and afterlife) were very interesting and I felt that Mary Romasanta tackle this interplay very well. The interplay between these two characters and Emma, a former patient of Dr. Vedurmudi and Dr. Clark felt fleshed out and not two-dimensional.


*Minor spoiler alert*


There is only gripe that I had with this novel was that one romantic relationship felt it when quite abruptly, from them meeting each other and talking for this first time to them moving with each other because she became pregnant in the next paragraph. It felt like the relationship between these two characters were very one note.