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Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Silent Screams

An unusual book, in that it's written in the form of a novel, but is also an introduction to the reader into the precepts of karma and reincarnation. It deals mainly with Sven, a middle aged businessman and former champion racing driver. His mistress (one of many he's had) has just called off their affair and his wife leaves him. Getting drunk because of how upset he was, he crashes his car and is laid up in hospital, paralysed from the neck down.

His friend, Vincent, is convinced that it wasn't an accident at all, but something he subconsciously wanted and tries to get Sven interested in regressing to past lives and his childhood to discover why he seems so bent on destruction, of himself and those around him. At first Sven is sceptical when nothing happens after Vincent places him in a trance, but he wants to try again. This time, he does go back to a former life, as a slave in the ancient city of Ur, and Sven wants to go back more and more.

For me, the trips back to Sven's various lives, were the most interesting parts of the book, and every time Vincent was putting Sven into a trance, I could hardly wait and wonder where he was going to end up next, and as who. It was a bit like time travel.

The story was good, but some of the writing was a little stilted, as if perhaps, English wasn't the author's first language, an even greater achievment if that was the case. The author also had an annoying habit of putting exclamation marks on the end of nearly every sentence in the dialogue sections. There was no need for so many, less is definitely more in this case. Even with that, it is still an interesting read and the research shines through. Good if you want to find out a bit more about reincarnation with turning into a textbook.