Romancing the Soul by Sarah Tranter
Author Connections: Personal Site | @sarah_tranter | Facebook
Illustrated By: Berni Stevens
@circleoflebanon | Writer | Illustrator
Converse via: #ChocLit & #RomancingTheSoul
Genre(s): Fiction | Romance | Past Lives
Paranormal Elements | Suspense
Available Formats: Paperback, E-Book
Acquired Book By:
I am a ChocLit reviewer who receives books of my choice in exchange for honest reviews! I received a complimentary copy of “Romancing the Soul” from ChocLit via IPM (International Publisher’s Marketing) in exchange for an honest review! I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Inspired to Read:
The idea of past life regenerations and regressions is a topic of interest of mine for quite awhile now. I haven’t read a story set against the practice but I oft wondered what the ramifications would be if someone went back to a life they were not yet prepared to accept as their own? The idea of finding the one your truly meant to be with the rest of your life by having a marker set in the past which links the two of you together in the future is an idea I’d like to explore! The suspense alone would be brilliant to engage in, whilst the characters are sorting out where they stand and what they can drink in as plausible!
Romancing the Soul
by Sarah Tranter
Illustrator/Cover Designer: Berni Stevens
Source: Direct from Publisher
Your Soul Mate is out there!
Let a past life lead the way
Rachael Jones hasn’t exactly chosen an average career path. She’s a ‘past-life regressionist’ and is now hoping to help her clients find their Soul Mates through reconnecting them with their past lives. But despite her best intentions, there are problems. Rachael made the mistake of regressing her best friend, Susie Morris, who has since been haunted by events that occurred in her past life.
When Susie meets Hollywood actor, George Silbury in unlikely circumstances, she is completely unprepared for her reactions. There’s an intense mutual attraction that neither can explain nor ignore.
Can George help Susie to overcome the sense of desolation she feels as the result of her past-life regression or will history’s habit of repeating itself ruin all chances of her finding happiness?
Places to find the book:
Published by ChocLitUK
on 7th January, 2014
Format: UK Edition Paperback
Pages: 370
In regards to the ‘heat’ of sensuality & sexuality explored in this novel, I felt I ought to let my readers know this one was a bit more intense than your regular Romance novel.
Author Biography:
Sarah Tranter lives in Wiltshire, England with her very supportive husband and her two boys. The family includes Rufus the dog, two cats, five chickens, countless pet spiders and an assortment of bugs (courtesy of her youngest). Sarah has been a Constituency Researcher for a Labour Member of Parliament, a Political Lobbyist and a London Publicist, before turning her career to writing.
Sarah’s novels include: No Such Thing as Immortality and Romancing the Soul (January 2014).
Past Lives & Past Lives Regressionists & the New Age spin of the novel:
The beauty of the linchpin inside the novel is that it is a measure of transference of belief, faith without evidential support, and the instinctive nature of knowing something you know is true without a foundation of how you came to the conclusion originally. The elemental notations on past lives by definition and by personality alter as you read the novel, as the story is an interjectional conversation from various points of view and by a motley crew of believers intermixed with those who are hedging bets to disprove any of it has any bearing on reality. The premise is quite a bit more New Age and paranormally inclined at the jumpstart, but the further you alight inside the pages, you realise Tranter wrote a very intellectually stimulating narrative that is not quite as it appears to be.
On that level I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was nibbling away in the recess of understanding the methodology used to visualise the transitions and the queues from the past to the present, until a lightbulb went off and I started to process this through a knack for science and the scientific cross-analysations that purported the plot into its truest light. Honestly by approaching a bit of this from the arm of science and threading it back through the Contemporary nature of the Romance genre, I found myself wholly entertained!
My Review of Romancing the Soul:
Romancing the Soul starts on such a fast clip of a pace at the jumpstart, how can you not *feel!* the anger boiling inside Cassie? And, rightly so! She’s in a turbulent swirl of stirring emotions after having alighted out of a past life regression session, fumingly livid about the implications of what the regressionist had brought to light from her ‘supposed past’ to the brink she starts seeing ‘red’. In order to refute the insanity seeping inside her very bones, she futility attempts to extract a way to prove the man was pure bunk by re-attempting a past life experience; clearly she never fathomed what she’d do if a second encounter with a seemingly haunting experience would render her shaken to her very core! I positively love the jolted state of her mind in the beginning – Tranter grabs you in such a brilliant way as to sink your toes straight into Cassie’s shoes without blinking yourself out of your own life! You’re wrapped inside your own hours and then, your straight-off living the emotional turmoil of Cassie’s! Brilliant stroke of passionate interception for the reader!
Romancing the Soul is writ in such a way, I’m all but creating my own audiobook in me head as I read it! Love this aspect of the motion by which the story is paced, because I feel as though each expression Cassie is vehemently empathising is being reverberated by my own voice; thereby creating the illusionary effect of an ‘audiobook’ on high def inside me own head! I also appreciated the sensibility a la Bridget Jones by nipping out to ensure an extra bottle of vodka was secured inside the cupboard! Tranter has set the tone for her novel into a quirky diary-style recollection which recants the adventure of unravelling the horror of Cassie’s past life regressions in a bit by bit puzzling clue per exploit experience as she moves from regressionist to regressionist. Her quest to undermine the cohesively vile past life she keeps experiencing is not going according to her plans and therein lies the rub! The apparent folly for her displeasure is a seemingly beguiling truth to the past life she’s attempting to outwit!
Susie and George have this magnetically charged attraction which is as illogical as the Bermuda Triangle! They are irrevocably entwined into each other’s soul’s and the orientation of where their individual happiness lies is clearly becoming dependent on the choices they each will start to make as they move forward. What was such a unique take on this story-line is how the past lives and the present lives started to bleed into each other as far as who they were and who they are now. George you see, is Cassie’s brother both in the past and in the present, and the wild ride starts to ensue when Cassie realises that this mission of hers to unearth the debunking of past life regressionists is not truly her sole motivation anymore. It is to have a more clearer understanding of how George is being directly affected by welcoming back a past soul mate into his present! I loved how the sections were written as far as to express how two past lives come back into connection with each other: clearly they are as explosively charged and combustive as any chemical reaction in chemistry; to the brink of not even fully understanding why they cannot remain separated. In science this would be considered a binary coupling, as they are innately autoassociative.
I positively love the humour of ChocLit authors, and how they seem to match my own sense of humour is always a happy smirk of a surprise — there is a particular nod to The Memoirs of the Invisible Man and I nearly snickered out loud! Oh, I finally caught-on to what ‘she counselled’ meant, its what we’d say in reference of “she reasoned”. Love those subtle differences between countries! Not to even mention the fact I vascillate between thinking about how the scenes inside this story reflect a memory of two of my favourite romantic films: “Notting Hill” (for the actor who falls for a commoner) and “Bridget Jones” for the neuroticies!
Romancing the Soul takes the most interesting turn as fate is interlaced with free will: in full court of view, not only did I get to feel connected to George and Susie’s dilemma of sorting out their combustion of attraction, but through the letters left behind of Freddie and Hannah (the couple inside the ‘past life’) it was as though a slow turning wheel was aligning the past alongside the present. I even loved seeing where Cassie’s own journey was taking her back into the 19th Century and shifting back into the present via the letters; letters she should have shared with the two they were written about yet she kept reading them for hidden clues of how to understand the muddlement of their lives. As the story expands from this moment of discovery, Tranter takes her readers on a wild ride through time and history! At one point, I seriously thought the story had jumped the rails — yet, in a pure escapist fashion where you can soak inside a novel, tune out reality, and simply enjoy the ride!
On the writing style of Sarah Tranter : And a bit of a crash course in British slang!:
I’m a bonefide Anglophile, just ask any of my dearest friends who can attest this to be wholly true but I fear, I lack a bit in the category of understanding full-on British slang and the everyday vernacular of modern Britons! Let’s face it, for all the lovely BBC serials I consume, I am still a wee bit on the fence to always pick up the subtlety of a native inside joke being exchanged between characters; mind you, I do get-on quite well despite this cardinal flaw but on occasion I wish there were a ‘book’ out there which could help me curb the deficiency! I’ve resorted to googling the phrases & dashes of ‘slang’ I sort of noodle out of my readings of British authors & British literature writ by writers who focus on life in England and/or a flair for a British slice of living elsewhere. Picking up a Sarah Tranter novel is like giving yourself a crash course in British slang! And, I couldn’t be more delighted – my great-grandmother might be a bit gobsmacked my brow wasn’t wrinkled in shock, but I’m a lass of the latter half of the 20th Century not the 19th, and very little raises my brows at this point! Although, the expression on page three did warrant a bit of a surprise, but considering the mind-set of Cassie at the point of which it was expressed, it fit her mood and her modern attitude of ‘enough is quite enough’! (in another sort of moment it might have been considered borderline crude*)
At some point, (and most likely upon curling into a quilt in front of a hearth whilst a blizzard rages its head beyond the sill of frosted glass) I daresay I need to soak back through my readings of each ChocLit novel which graces my hands and heart – pen poised nearby and a fervent eye to capture each brilliant word and phrase pleasantly British and most decidedly not American! I’m of the mind to do this for each beloved British serial and motion picture, too! Am I the only collector of words? Surely, I am not the first reader ghung-ho over discovering new twists of phrase and prose?
*Note: Being a watcher of British telly and films, I’ve come to have learnt a few things about my British ancestors and cousins; clearly, my British side of the family encouraged a blunt side of humour and took a straight shot at the heart of what is considered humourous to their American relations. This is not only something of the past but of the present, as to be point of frank Britons have a humour all of their own where generally speaking those us on this side of the Pond weaken some of the crudeness out of humour but it depends on where you align your humour hat. To be particular, the opening promo for most BBC dvds includes a claymation skit in which British humour is in full force. I love the differences between my American & British roots because its two sides of the coin of who I am. Going into any British story (by novel or screen) I take into account the differences and appreciate finding them with a grace of acceptance I do not always allow for other works of literature. My tolerance and acceptance therefore is higher when taking into accord the wit and style of a British novel verse any other story inside of another genre. I still have my limits though – as I will always reflect inside my reviews. I just have a winking of a bar higher for this side of my bloodline! Laughs. I never said I wasn’t quirky!
Fly in the Ointment:
I originally wasn’t going to attach a notation on this review, until I clearly realised that part of the vulgarity if you will is being hidden from my view as its a very, very *British!* novel! There were also highly creative spellings of words and for the most part I flickered those infrequent words away, as they were sort of interfering with my enjoyment of watching the sequences unwind and unravell for Susie & George! Truth be known, this is a novel that is quite literally the very first I would claim I have read that was enjoyed for *pure escapism!*, as I’m generally quite quick to point out on my blog, in the book blogosphere, and even in the Twitterverse that I do not read for escapism; clearly there is always a new day arriving round the corner! Tranter held my attention because this was such a far jaunt outside my regular go-to next reads that I was keenly interested in what was going to happen. I’d say this is the closest to straight-up Romance / Chick-Lit I have consumed within my reading life. To put it another way, it is a case of ‘opposites attract’ and that is as illogical as Susie & George attempting to sort out what exactly are past lives and what bearing of weight do they have on their own lives!?
Hmm,… I had said ‘infrequent’ vulgarity, in truth it is infrequent, but Tranter has this urge to binge her naughty words together in small bundles, so its a bit like having an infrequent occurrence of a bundlement of words that truly did not add to the story-lines but rather subtracted a bit of pace and flow. And, this is when I could understand I was glossing over a word that falls into this category as like I said, it was full-on Brit! Ironically, she creatively spells one particular word for approx. a quarter of the first half of the novel before reverting back to the traditional spelling. I was most perplexed at the switch in how they were being spelt, but at least I knew the word for what it was. Blessedly the worst of the worst of words for me to stumble across in literature was completely absent and I considered that wicked good! Also I should mention before I even reached the halfway mark all of this dispersed from view! Any cursing was ‘off camera’ for the most part at this stage and no longer had any grievances. At least until page 160, oy! Where I would have opted for a more creative word of choice.
Note to Self: Sort out how to percure either a British Dictionary OR an Encyclopedia of British words, phrases, expressions of slang, and Cockney! Even though thus far along in my quest to unearth such a beauty of a gem has gone without a discovery! Woe is Jorie!
This book review is courtesy of ChocLitUK,
Previously I have happily hosted ChocLit Authors on Jorie Loves A Story:
Mark your calendars!
Please take note of the Related Articles as they were hand selected due to being of cross-reference importance in relation to this book review. This applies to each post on my blog where you see Related Articles underneath the post. Be sure to take a moment to acknowledge the further readings which are offered.
*NEWSFLASH* : I have read and reviewed all the books I have received from my last parcel of bookish joy from ChocLitUK! This review marks the chance to queue new novels and new authors to enjoy for next month’s ChocLitSaturdays! I am most delighted at the prospect of being able to visit new stories and getting to know authors I have not yet read! And, I wonder which stories I will be selecting to read? I decided to create a *special!* ChocLit inspired List on Riffle: This #ChocLitSaturdays Girl has a #ChocLit Next Reads List! Stay Tuned!
For those who are unware of #ChocLitSaturdays, the chat, we meet regular @ 11am EST / 4pm London! I created the chat to encourage new readers to discover not only the ChocLit novels I am showcasing & reading through my blog feature of the same name, but to help draw a close knit group of Romance booklovers, writers, and appreciators together for an hour of solid friendship and wicked sweet conversation!
All are welcome to attend! Tweet me or leave a comment in this thread for further details!
I positively *love!* comments in the threads below each of my posts, and I have happily made sure that I could reacquire the WP Comments where you can leave me a comment by using: WP (WordPress), Twitter, Facebook, Google+, & Email! Kindly know that I appreciate each thought you want to share with me and all the posts on my blog are open to new comments & commentary! Short or long, I appreciate the time you spent to leave behind a note of your visit! Return again soon!
{SOURCES: Author photograph, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, and Book Cover were provided by ChocLitUK and were used by permission. Book Review badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Jorie Loves A Story badge created by Ravven with edits by Jorie in FotoFlexer. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.
Related Articles:
Autoassociative Memory – (en.wikipedia.org)
The ‘live reading’ tweets I shared as I read & reviewed “Romancing the Soul”:
{ favourite & Re-tweet if inspired to share }
Hallo, everyone! :) I’m in the beginning chapters of #RomancingTheSoul by @sarah_tranter; what are your #weekendreads? :) #choclitsaturdays
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) August 30, 2014
As I’m curling into #RomancingTheSoul has a curious thread about past lives; what is your favourite unique story thread? #choclitsaturdays
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) August 30, 2014
As I’m curling into #RomancingTheSoul has a curious thread about past lives; what is your favourite unique story thread? #choclitsaturdays
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) August 30, 2014
@sarah_tranter #choclitsaturdays Thank you, & to you as well! I cannot wait to read the rest of #RomancingTheSoul! Will be in touch after :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) August 30, 2014
.@sarah_tranter soaking back into #RomancingTheSoul (#Romance #Contemporary) a story sweeping me away as #amreading about a spunky lead char
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 6, 2014
.@sarah_tranter had to stop reading Romancing the Soul last wkend due to my migraine; I am soaking back into it today for #ChocLitSaturdays!
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 12, 2014
#amreading Romancing the Soul by Sarah Tranter picking up where left off last wkend w/ #ChocLit #novel; OH my DEAR STARS its a unique ride!
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 13, 2014
#amreading a #ChocLit#book: Romancing the Soul of which I #amblogging about as I read! :) a #Contemporary Romance w/ a twist of the past :)
— Jorie Loves A Story (@JLovesAStory) September 14, 2014
Comments shared on Twitter:
@JLovesAStory thank you SO much for the great review of Romancing the Soul, Jorie! I’m delighted you enjoyed it! X
— Sarah Tranter (@sarah_tranter) September 19, 2014
@sarah_tranter Romancing the Soul r/v on @JLovesAStory blog http://t.co/fMveFjxqrc #regression
— Liv (@Livbet) September 17, 2014
Read the threaded conversation via #ChocLitSaturday on Romancing the Soul
Leave a Reply