Review: The Alchemy of Forever

   

Title: The Alchemy of Forever
Author: Avery Williams

Series: Incarnation #1
Pages: 256

Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: April 26th 2012 (UK)
Source: For Review
Rating: 3.5 stars
100 Book challenge: #27

After spending six hundred years on Earth, Seraphina Ames has seen it all. Eternal life provides her with the world's riches but at a very high price: innocent lives. Centuries ago, her boyfriend, Cyrus, discovered a method of alchemy that allows them to take the bodies of other humans from jumping from one vessel to the next, ending the human's life in the process. No longer able to bear the guilt of what she's done, Sera escapes from Cyrus and vows to never kill again. 

Then sixteen-year old Kailey Morgan gets into a horrific car accident right in front of her, and Sera accidentally takes over her body while trying to save her. For the first time, Sera finds herself enjoying the life of the person she's inhabiting--and falling in love with the boy who lives next door. But Cyrus will stop at nothing until she's his again, and every moment she stays, she's putting herself and the people she's grown to care about in danger. Will Sera have to give up the one thing that's eluded her for centuries: true love?

The Alchemy of Forever is an interesting, fast paced story about a girl dealing with the struggles of immortality and the price she (or others) have to pay for it.

Seraphina takes over Kailey's body accidentally whilst trying to save her life. She then has to take over Kailey's life to stay hidden from Cyrus who is trying to find her. I liked Seraphina. She had a good heart and she really wanted to do the right thing which was admirable.

Noah, the love interest, was rather nice if I don't mind saying so. Sweet and sensitive and the typical boy next door. I thought their romance was sweet, if not a little fast moving. With these immortal style books I do find it a little hard to fully back the romance as she is about 600 years and he is a teenager. Despite being this old, her maturity was that of a teenager which I didn't feel was necessarily how someone would stay after living that long, but hey-ho.

Cyrus, the villain, creeps me out. He was possessive and stalkerish and just overly creepy. I definitely wasn't swooning over him in this kind-of-not-really love triangle!

The ending was a shocker! I was all "WHAT!" at the end. It was unexpected and I feel I must pick up the next book to find out how things go down!