The Immortal Bind
Traci Harding
Harper Voyager
2017, 368p
Copy courtesy Harper Collins AUS
Blurb {from the publisher/Goodreads.com}:
The adventure of a lifetime… or two, or three
When Sara is gifted a beautiful antique chair as a wedding present, she is completely unaware that it is one of a unique pair. On the other side of the world, the chair’s twin is presented to a reclusive artist, Jon, as a birthday gift.
The two new owners are thrust into a mind-expanding adventure through the ages – medieval East Anglia, Scotland, France and India. In each instance they experience significant junctions in their lives past, to remember and redress ripples of karma they set in motion, and thwart an evil entity that still threatens their present day lives.
Their journey exposes a cursed love affair spanning one hundred thousand years and ten thousand miles. Only the full realisation of their own short comings will prevent the tragic reoccurring outcome of their immortal bind.
They say you should never judge a book by its cover. But I think most, if not all readers are guilty of it in some way. I know I certainly am and I as soon as I pulled this book out of the packaging, I wanted to read it. Before I’d even glanced at the blurb. The colours are ‘my thing’ – those beautiful greens and blues. It looked mysterious.
In the present day, clothing designer Sara and artist Jon are both gifted antique chairs by the people closest to them. Sara lives in Australia, Jon in England. Both love their new gifts….but are stunned to see that the chairs appear to possess magical powers, causing each to sleep and dream vividly when both are sitting in them. The dreams take place in very different time periods and places but the general story is always the same – star crossed lovers kept apart by an evil character who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. In each dream, Sara and Jon play the roles of the young lovers and they are surprised to recognise people they know playing various bit parts.
Both Sara and Jon soon realise that these are no dreams…..and that they are the current manifestations of an ancient curse. The only way to escape the vicious cycle that repeats every few hundred years is to end the curse. First they will have to discover how to do that…..when they haven’t even met in this life and are separated by thousands of kilometers and pursued by a creature who is determined to finally possess what has eluded him for over thousands of years.
This book definitely lived up to my expectations from its pretty cover! I was hooked from the first page and I found every single part of the story so well constructed and they were all expertly woven together. I know very little about a lot of the background of some of the timeframes but it really didn’t matter. I found that each time Jon and Sara experienced another “dream” I kind of cared little about where and when it was taking place and more about the people within it. Each one is really heartbreaking and frustrating as well. After the first one or two you know that any more ‘dreams’ they experience can really only end one way and that unless they figure out the messages in the dreams and discover a way to break an ancient curse, then their current incarnation will end the same way as all of the previous ones.
There’s something so incredibly romantic about the idea of having a soul mate that you are destined to come across in reincarnation. I am not sure if it doesn’t happen in every lifetime or if there is a gap between everything aligning for the recincarnations…..there are remarks made that there’s a wait of another couple hundred years before it will happen again and in the current life, Jon and Sara couldn’t be more far apart. They aren’t in a relationship, they haven’t even crossed paths. Everything seems stacked against them in this time period, even more so than in all the rest. Of course less romantic is the part of the story that sees someone who will stop at nothing in order to prevent you from being with your soul mate but that adds the suspense element.
With each story showcasing a previous life, I found that I became more and more invested in Jon and Sara finally getting to live a life together, even though these two people hadn’t actually met yet! Both of them had already suffered so much in other lives and when they dream about them whilst sleeping in the chairs, they experience it as if living it all over again. I also really enjoyed the role that their best friends played – both in this life and in the previous manifestations. In each, the role was a little different and it seemed to grow and evolve as well. I appreciated the trust and belief that the friends had in Jon and Sara too, some without even seeing proof of the “weirdness” of the chairs!
This is the first book by Traci Harding that I’ve read and I loved it! It has such atmosphere and so many elements….romance, history, mystery, fantasy, friendship, a bit of suspense. I’m definitely going to have to look for more of her books – she has quite an extensive backlist, some 20 or so books! It’s always good to find an author that you’ve enjoyed and discover that they have so many more books! There are a few series’ too and I love a series so I’m pretty excited. As a reader it’s good to step out of your comfort zone every now and then, try things that you might not normally gravitate towards.
8/10
Book #23 of 2017
The Immortal Bind is the 9th book for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2017
All The Books I Can Read 
ooh, great to see you enjoyed this book! I’ve yet to read it but I will soon. I’m a Traci Harding fan and has been since the late 90s so glad to welcome you to the fandom lol