Pages - 320 pages
My Rating - 5/5
**borrowed from a friend**
“In another life, she was my forever.”Reading Transcend feels a lot like being on a rollercoaster. An emotional one that is. It offers a book that is a perfect mix of emotionally draining and exhilarating. It is the kind of book you feel as you are reading it.
An unexpected tragedy leaves Professor Nathaniel Hunt a widower alone with a newborn baby.
He hires a nanny. She’s young, but well-qualified, with a simple life, a crazy name obsession, and a boyfriend she met at the grocery store.
Over time, he discovers she knows things about him—things that happened before she was born—like a hidden scar on his head, his favorite pizza, and how he cheated on a high school Spanish test.
She speaks familiar words and shares haunting memories that take him back to over two decades earlier when he lost his best friend in a tragic accident.
“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when you realize I’m not her.”
Transcend is a sexy, mind-bending journey that uncovers possibilities, challenges beliefs, and begets the age-old question: is there life after death?
This is also the kind of book I recommend going in as blind as possible about. It's the type of book that is best experienced along with the characters. The emotional impact will be the most felt that way and the story will resonate more.
The writing feels effortless and ensures that you are pulled into the story and that the emotional beats resonate as much as they do. It is one of those books you cannot put down and that is due largely in part to the writing.
I adore all of the characters for different reasons. They all resonated with me in some way. The author gave them all room to be flawed, realistic characters who make decisions the readers are not always going to agree with while ensuring we understood them. Swayze and Griffen are both still pretty young and Nate is in the midst of grief that just seems to continuously open old hurts and pile them on top of each other. They are all going to make mistakes and flounder a bit, especially as things unravel.
The relationships are the heart of this novel in so many ways Swayze's relationship with Griffen. Her relationship with Nate. Nate's relationship with Daisy. All of these are swirling and creating this atmosphere where the tension keeps building to the point you are breathlessly waiting for something to break it. You end up caring about all of these characters and that makes this read all the more bittersweet because you know heartbreak is all that is in store.
Those who are not fans of the love triangle will want to beware. Transcend certainly is setting up one of the more complex, conflicting, and discussion worthy triangles that I have ever experienced. It is what I consider a love triangle done right and authors who want to pull off a successful one in their own books should take notes. I have a feeling it is only going to break my heart but I cannot wait to see all of the relationships progress in the next book. Both guys are worthy for different reasons and the supernatural-ish element of the story adds a complication to one of the pairings that, for me, only makes the story more interesting.
The ending offers a cliffhanger that will leave you breathlessly scrambling to pick up the sequel to get the answers to the million questions you'll undoubtedly have. It also sets up the sequel to be just as emotional and dynamic as the first.
It's a sexy, beautifully written, thought provoking read that I entirely fell into. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves intense, romantic reads that, possibly, have a hint of supernatural in them. Just make sure you have the sequel on hand because I am not kidding about that need-to-know-yesterday cliffhanger ending.
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