I really, really enjoyed this sweeping love story across generations and lifetimes, between continents, through centuries, with two lovers who always find each other. Fated souls/reincarnation/destined love stories can end up being twee or disappointing, which I've found a few times, but Laura Steven absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one. Little nods to past lives, complex relationships, mistaken identities, and love - love between souls, love strong enough to carry between lives, love that can overcome anything! - as well as secrecy, betrayal, shock, found family, blood family, complex, layered, fiercely protective and thoroughly engaging love in all its forms. I devoured this over the course of two or three days where I spent every spare moment greedily returning to Wales and to all the other places these two lovers meet, and was left utterly satisfied at the end. Bittersweet and hauntingly beautiful, I think this is Laura's best book yet.

A young couple are destined to live their lives over and again through centuries of history but they both always die before their eighteenth birthdays. Evelyn can remember all her past lives. She can also remember that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday.
The problem is that she's quite fond of the one she's in now, and more importantly, her sister needs her for bone marrow transplants to stay alive. So now she has to find the centuries-old enemy who hunts her through each life and destroy them forever.

The plot premise is loopy but this is a compelling, genre-defying mystery with huge imaginative scope and great characters. A well crafted read for older teens or adult crossover

They have loved each other in a thousand lifetimes and killed each other in every one. Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She's also aware that she must die before her eighteenth birthday, but she cannot remember why.

Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven is a captivating novel that seamlessly blends the present with past lives, creating a unique narrative structure that keeps readers hooked. The transitions between the present-day storyline and glimpses into previous lives are done effortlessly, making the time shifts feel both natural and intriguing. The author’s ability to interweave these timelines allows for a deeper understanding of the characters and their evolving relationships.

At its core, Our Infinite Fates is a beautiful exploration of love and betrayal. The story delves into the complexities of emotions, showcasing how love transcends time and how past experiences shape present actions. The themes of loyalty, heartbreak, and the consequences of betrayal are portrayed with depth and sensitivity.

The pacing is generally well-managed. The story moves quickly enough to maintain tension, yet takes the time to develop characters and settings in a meaningful way. However, there are moments where the pacing stumbles, particularly in the final act. Some readers may find the resolution a bit predictable, and certain character arcs might feel underdeveloped. Despite this, the book’s emotional payoff is strong, offering a satisfying sense of closure while still leaving room for future possibilities.

This was an absolutely beautiful book. I've read and enjoyed Laura Steven's work before and this is a massive step up. The prose is so heartfelt, you can literally feel the yearning and emotions leaping off the page. My heart was racing and twisting with the characters and I was tearing up in the final chapters.

‘Sometimes I think the force of your love could mend the earth.’
‘I don’t need it to mend the earth. I just need it to mend this.’

I do think this is definitely a YA book, so don't go in expecting an adult book. All the focus is on the main two characters, there isn't too much character development in the side characters. The ending/big twist is also revealed and resolved rather quickly. The prose and the love story and emotions though are incredible and a step above other YA books I've read recently.

'I love you, and I have loved you, and I will love you.'

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for the e-ARC.

“I love you, and have loved you, and I will love you”

As soon as I heard about this book I knew I would love it, and I have not been disappointed. This beautifully written story of a lifetime of love, betrayal, hate, despair, and grief hooked me immediately, and I will not be moving on from Evelyn and Arden’s heartbreaking story for a long long time.

“No matter how many lives I lost, no matter how many families moved on without me, I would always be known by Arden. Perhaps he was my true homeland; our existence a language only we could speak”

This wasn't for me, I almost DNF'd but I powered through. I just didn't feel any connection to the characters, they kept saying they were in love, A LOT, but it was never shown. I also have issue with the logic towards the end, surely the reasonable thing to conclude was that stabbing the mother would just kill them both and start a loop again like with the main characters. Why did she think that killing the mother would end all the problems?

I liked that they weren't tied to particular genders. However I did get a bit confused sometimes working out which person was who in the flashbacks. I also didn't see the reveal coming about why they were in this pickle.

I really liked the concept, and the poetry was nice, but it just wasn't for me.

An exquisite tale of love and loss. Our Infinite Fates stuck with me long after the final pages fell shut. It's one of those books I wish I could read again for the first time.

First I would like to thank Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

I am left with very mixed feeling about this one. I was so excited to read it as it sounded so promising, however as much as I loved it, it also felt like it didn’t meet the expectations I had for it and felt flat somewhere in the middle.

The premises of the story felt magical and gave me strong feeling of longing through the glimpses of their past lives, however this is also where I felt the flashback did not serve purpose and felt repetitive after awhile. This is also where I lost a bit of interest as up until more than halfway through the book, nothing really was happening and it was just a bit slow paced for my liking. But then with the reveal, and the plot twist I feel it was redeemed.

Overall I liked the story and characters and how it was written, but unfortunately it was not the 5 star read I was anticipating.

In every lifetime, they find each other. In every lifetime, she dies.
This is a love story.
This time, Evelyn needs to live. Her sister needs her bone marrow - and she has a list, hidden away, of things she could do if she ever reaches adulthood. But she needs to find her killer, and find out why his love ends at the edge of a knife.
The characters, because they were reincarnated into so many lifetimes, felt hard to pin down after a while. I couldn't tell you what Evelyn and Arden are like. The plot is interesting, but the twist felt a bit out of place and just left me wishing the story had ended differently.

This book was written for the hopeless romantics, the people who believe in soul-mates. I am in utter awe of this book, it felt as though it touched my soul. I could not put it down! Every single sentence is laced with such a poetic narrative, I knew from the first page I was gone for.

Evelyn has lived countless past lives, always murdered by Arden, a supernatural being tied to her soul. To save her sister, she must break their curse, avoid Arden’s deadly pursuit, and resist falling in love with him.

I don’t think I've ever read a book like this before! I enjoyed the switching in timelines throughout the chapters and seeing Evelyn and Arden in their past lives. I thought the mystery aspect was so well done and it had me speeding through the book for answers!! AND that twist at the end?? I did not see that coming from a mile away.

This story was achingly beautiful, filled with yearning, betrayal and plenty of heartbreak. An epic love story which gives meaning to the term soulmates. I promise this will break your heart in all the best ways.

“I love you, I have loved you, and I will love you.”

Evelyn remembers most of her past lives, their edges blur the further back she goes but one thing remains clear. In all of them, she is killed before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul seems tied to hers. She is very fond of her current life and her little sister needs her, she needs a bone marrow transplant to survive and when the date keeps getting pushed back and her eighteenth birthday approaches, Evelyn must find a way to break the cycle of death she and Arden seem stuck in.

So starting this review with the best part of the book: the absolutely beautiful writing. You could pick almost any sentence in the book and turn it into one of these Pinterest quotes (the good ones!!). I’m usually not one for flowery language but in this case I loved it. It made sense to the characters and story and actually added to them.

Overall I did enjoy reading our infinite fates, but I did have a gripe with the pacing. Almost nothing happens in the first 85% of the book. For the first half I didn’t mind it too much because again the writing made up for it but once we got past 45% and there still was nothing going on I did get bored. The final confrontation had so much potential but we skipped over it so quickly, it was over in a few paragraphs.

‼️Some spoilers in this para!!
I know this is Y/A and usually it’s my favourite genre, I can usually overlook characters doing stupid stuff in these books because they’re teens, they do stupid shit that’s normal. But in this one Evelyn is like a thousand years old, most of the time she acts accordingly but every time it was about Arden she acted like a five year old suddenly.

Overall, I do think this is a great book that I’d recommend to y/a lovers who want some beautifully written angst. All my issues with it were personal, (if you’re a fellow slow paced book hater this isn’t for you) so I can see many people loving it.

Thanks to Penguin Random House and Netgalley for a review copy of this novel. For me, this novel had hints of Virginia Wolf’s Orlando as it follows Evelyn and Arden down through the centuries in various incarnations and genders through flashbacks or rather chapters that take us back through different lives to find the clue that tells us why this couple are doomed to die before they’re eighteen, at Arden’s hands. They are tethered by a bond, that much Evelyn does know and in her current life living in Wales as a teen approaching her eighteenth birthday she would very much like to know why, because she wants to live beyond that day. Most pressing is the fact that she’s supposed to donate her bone marrow to her sister in her cancer fight. But as the day approaches and Evelyn looks warily around for the person who might be Arden she finds herself taking more desperate risks until it all comes tumbling around her and Arden is revealed. Bargaining ensues and though Arden assures her that he is doing it for them, for his love for her, every reincarnation, she tries to discover why and change his mind. Past lives colour their relationship and deepen it even more, creating a sense for the reader of the depth of both their loves.

Poetry created by Arden in a past life is threaded through the narrative, hinting at the cause, showing the deep abiding nature of that Arden has for Evelyn until it is all revealed. The revelation and the scenes that followed are a bit melodramatic and not quite in keeping with the rich narrative of the rest for me fitting more on a paranormal side but Stevens does manage to pull it off and the ending shows the richness the bulk of the novel displayed and the deft writing.

I have never read a book that really depicted soulmates the way this one did. It was incredible. I loved journeying with the characters through different period of times and seeing how they found each other again in every lifetime!

I was fully immersed from start to finish and I had the absolute best time reading it! This was such a beautiful story about love and how love truly conquers all! I couldn’t recommend this enough!!!

‘I love you, and I have loved you, and I will loved you’ I keep coming back this quote because it’s so achingly beautiful

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for allowing me to me read this arc!

I've read a few books with the concept of lovers reuniting life after life, but this was the first that really grabbed my attention. I loved the dynamic between Evelyn and Arden. Desperate to love one another but knowing that they'd have to kill the other and die themselves by their 18th birthday every single time they were reincarnated.
I loved seeing the little flashbacks to their previous lives and how different each life was throughout history. How they both could come back as either male or female, but this made no difference to either their romance or their ending.
I actually preferred the flashbacks to the main story, as I found the historical settings a bit more interesting, and at times, current day Evelyn irritated me a bit, but I couldn't tell you why.
But overall it was an excellent story, with a really interesting ending. Worth a read for a slightly different YA romance novel.

Our Infinite Fates is a beautifully written YA fantasy that is told from the perspective of our main character Evelyn who is able to remember her past lives and has been killed by the same person before her 18th birthday in every one. In the present life she is desperate to stay alive as her sister is unwell and needs a bone marrow transplant. The book follows the present timeline as she tries to stay alive and uncover the reasons for these events and also goes back over Evelyn and Arden's story in several of their previous lives to help piece together all the information. The book is beautifully written and is a captivating love story. I really enjoyed the development of the book and I definitely did not see the twist coming. This is a great YA fantasy and I'm very excited to read more by this author.

𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑰 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖.”

“𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒖𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒇𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒅𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏: 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝑰 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒖𝒍𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚 𝒎𝒆”

“𝑰𝒇 𝒂 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅, 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝒗𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆. 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒖𝒑 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆.”

This was so unbelievably heartwarming & heartbreaking at the same time. It was so good to start to finish, i was invested!!

It follows Evelyn & Arden who are already in love & have been for many every lifetime. However, just before they turn eighteen Arden must kill Evelyn. Arden has hunted Evelyn for a thousand years but doesn’t understand why, yet in every lifetime she is drawn back to them.

So much of this book hit home, it explores the meaning of life, the importance of love and its power & beauty. Their relationship transcends time, gender & social norms. The tension between the two had me gripped!!

It was such a good read, written beautifully.

I’m not a huge YA reader but this would be one i recommend

This book was everything I wanted it to be and more. I was completely on board from the moment I heard about even the premise for this book, but even then it lived up to my expectations and beyond.

There were so many reason this book deserved the 5⭐️. First off, the characters. Evelyn and Arden and every iteration of the two we met were so well written. I really enjoyed seeing their personalities shine through no matter what form we say them in, and how each new life added a new layer of texture to their personalities and world views.

I really enjoyed the somewhere subtle and wholly normalised queerness throughout the book. What you've essentially got, despite the gender swapping throughout new incarnations, is a masc leaning character and a canonical nonbinary/genderfluid character. Though it's not a main plot point for the story, I think how queerness was handled was done so incredibly beautifully, and it really sat well with me.

I was also a big fan of the sort of alternate and opposite timeline changes. Our main timeline always moving forward but then the secondary timeline always rewinding back, one only progressing thanks to the other. I loved that, it took me till about hallways to realise we were slowly revealing using the second timeline to go back in time as a reader, but that's what makes it se well done.

The writing style is so easy to read, I devoured this book in about 2 days because it was addictive. And prose and poetry was so beautiful.

Plus that ending was perfect, heart wrenching and so satisfying all at once.

I could gush about how much I loved this book for hours but I'll leave it here with a solid 5⭐️, 10/10, a stunning book!

https://fable.co/review/9e93dc5d-5034-467a-86b1-f0e6f3ccd7f9/share

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211202756

4 Stars - upper YA romance with fantasy elements.

Evelyn has lived many lives, and in every one she is murdered by her soulmate before she turns 18. Evelyn doesn't remember why Arden needs to kill her as she can only remember details of her past few lives. In her current life her sister needs a bone marrow transplant so Evelyn is determined to stay alive this time in order to save her life.

The story is told from Evelyn's POV present day and intertwined with some of her past lives. The past lives are only one chapter per life but the author made me fall in love with them which I think is a hard thing to do given the page length. Each life was unique and heartfelt and I would of happily devoured a book about each life!

As Evelyn and Arden are reincarnated in multiple time eras and different genders the story explores a manner of world views from religion, war, gender identity, LBTQ themes that really makes you think about love and soulmates.

This is one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever read so you may be thinking why I rated it 4 stars and not 5. It was on track for 5 stars all the way through the book and becoming one of my favourites of the year until the reveal of the reason behind Arden's forced murderings and the ending. Whilst the reason wasn't bad it just wasn't what I was expecting and it it jarred me slightly - the book went from this beautiful love story to a sort of dark horror fantasy. The ending that followed this again wasn't bad but I wished and expected a different one.

I would still highly recommend the book but just keep your mind open at the end! I would recommend for fans of divine rivals - at heart, a romance book with a sprinkling of history and fantasy.

“𝗠𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘀, 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗱. 𝗔𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗮𝘁𝗲."

Evelyn can remember all her past lives. She can also remember that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday.

The problem is that she’s quite fond of the one she’s in now, and more importantly, her sister needs her for bone marrow transplants to stay alive. So with her 18th birthday fast approaching, she now has to:
• find the centuries-old enemy who hunts her through each life and destroy them forever
• figure out exactly why she’s being hunted in the first place,
• try quite hard not to fall in love with them
…again.

Unputdownable! Within the first few pages I was hooked, mesmerized and utterly enthralled.
I loved the set up of this book. Flashbacks interwoven through the current narrative, transporting the reading to various timelines and variations of Evelyn and Arden, each it's own glimpse of their reunion, their love and ultimately their deaths.

These little snapshots offering the reader more insight into these gorgeously complex characters, beautiful musings on life, love and living through grief, and how ultimately "𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝘃𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲."

I enjoyed the slow reveal of the Why, that eludes the reader until closer to the end, which was as sad as it was beautiful. Although Stevens might break your heart, she offers a sense of mending it (slightly.) It'll have the reader thinking about life, love and the basis of human connection, how something can be so fleeting but equally endure lifetimes.

Beautifully devastating love story spanning through the eons - time and space. Wow, this book was so unique, the plot twist had me jumping up the sofa and putting down my kindle! When fated love takes on a new meaning.
This is exquisitely written and although I found it a bit slow - I didn’t struggle like with most YA Books I read.