FOREVER, AGAIN

A contemporary white teenager becomes obsessed with a 1987 murder after she discovers that she is the reincarnation of one of its principals.

All her life Lily Bennet has had violent nightmares. It is only when she moves back to her dad’s hometown that she realizes through a hypnosis session with a local therapist that she is the reincarnation of Amber Greeley, a girl who supposedly murdered her boyfriend and then killed herself. Amazingly, her new crush, Cole, has learned that he is the reincarnation of Amber’s boyfriend. He is also, helpfully, a future FBI agent–in-training with (highly contrived) access to the original murder file, so with him, Lily tries to clear Amber’s name. The investigation turns deadly when the two learn that their own family members may have been complicit. Alternate chapters from Amber’s point of view reveal what really happened in 1987. The occasional 1980s clothing and movie references are the only bright spots in a cliché-ridden text in which this is a representative exchange: “He’s trash. His whole family is trash, and I will not have my granddaughter associating with the likes of them!” Even if readers can get past the boilerplate dialogue and convenient coincidences, the identity of the killer and circumstances of the murders are so preposterous that no amount of suspended disbelief will help them ring true.

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