Incarnate

by Jodi Meadows

Published by HarperCollins

Available January, 2012

synopsis

(from Goodreads)

NEWSOUL 

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why. 

NOSOUL 

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame? 

HEART 

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all? 

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

MY REVIEW

This book started off incredibly slow, but once it got started-WOW. . I almost put it aside. I'm glad I decided to keep reading. 

There were so many wonderful things about this book, originality, dragons , sylph, reincarnation. The characters

were full of life and fun to read about, although we would all probably be full of life if we had lived over and over in different 

bodies. The idea of remembering past lives was very strange. The entire reincarnation thing was difficult to comprehend.

The relationship between Ana (the newsoul or 'nosoul') and Sam was very strange. I kept thinking of Sam as more of a patient, paternal, 

older teacher. I could not see a romantic relationship between these two.  It was very strange reading about Ana wearing Sam's

'girl clothes' from a previous incarnation.

It was somewhat confusing to read about characters who are friends in this lifetime, but were mother/child or brother/sister in a previous life.  If it was confusing for me, the reader, imagine how confusing it was to poor Ana.

She (Ana) is an amazing character.  She is cynical and paranoid. I imagine I would be, too.  She is slow to trust (comes from growing up with Li...yuck).  I found that I felt sorry for her at times, but mostly I admired her strength and her willingness to go on...

Long after I finished this book, I was wondering about the next one.  Without giving anything away, I want to know more about Janan. More about the Temple...definitely more about Sam...

Overall, I loved the originality of this story. I anxiously await the next volume in the story.