Review: Worth a Read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 4, 2012
First off, I don't know who wrote the Amazon/Goodreads description, but they left out pretty important details.Cassia, Darius, Amatus, and Dulcia are Ancient Romans who have been "reincarnated"since their {original} deaths with the memories of al their past lives. I use quotation marks because they aren't born, put into bodies of twenty- or thirty-somethings.The description of the book is pretty spot on in regards to what happens in Ancient Rome, which encompasses about 3/4 of the book. The other 1/4 takes place today and is actually where the book starts.Cassia wakes up in a strange apartment, in a strange body, and Jambor takes us from there. We meet Darius and Amatus and learn that this reincarnation is a little different than the previous ones. Not only do our characters look eerily like their Ancient Roman selves, but this is their last chance to get it right. As readers, we don't yet know what "it" is. What we do know is somebody keeps dropping the ball, everybody dies {again}, and they have to start all over.I imagine after 2,000 years of doing this, everybody is just anxious to move of - physically and spiritually. {See what I did there?}The books moves back and forth between Ancient Rome and the world of today. We learn a little more back story - why they have so much money, who keeps dropping the ball, and how they're been able to live all these different lives.The story itself kept me entertained. Ancient Rome Cassia drove me crazy - but I'll just attribute that to the fact that she was 15 and Darius was her first love. We've all been there and you're lying if you say otherwise.There wasn't a whole lot of character development either. Yes, I could definitely tell a difference between Ancient Rome characters and 2012 characters, but the Roman ones just kind of stood in place as far as that aspect of the story. {In do expext more development in the next book.} Some sentences were a bit choppy and I would've liked a bit more flow to them. I could have had more showing and less telling, especially as some telling details were a bit on the side of "Gee, you don't say" with a heavy dose of sarcasm.For being one of the core four, Amatus has a small role is this novel. Obviously he'll be playing a bigger part later on since he''s one of the lucky ones who gets multiple do-overs.Cleverly enough {that is if you're interested enough to read the second novel}, Jambor doesn't get too in detail about the WHY of their reincarnations. Cassia makes a comment to Amatus that he "shouldn't have been there" tto which he replies "I made my choice. I've never regretted it." This novel is mostly backstory - here's what happened 2,000 years ago and here's what happening now. {I am planning on reading part 2.}Overall, it's a nice and easy read. Being a little less than 200 pages it did not take me long to read, but {as I said earlier} the story held my interest and kept me curious. I do wish the descriptions on Amazon and Goodreads included the details of their reincarnations, but I guess that's what people like me are for. :)