Katherine and Matthew are born again and again and again.
Katherine and Matthew meet and fall in love again and again.
Katherine and Matthew save the world again and –
Wait – what?
The Next Together has a very interesting concept, with ideas of reincarnation mixed with futuristic techniques, merging faith and science in an interesting way. In the latest time ‘landscape’, scientists are trying to erase historical mistakes that have led to a less than perfect world.
Enter Katherine and Matthew! Each time they are reborn, they meet, fall in love and stop a pivotal event in the downfall of the future happening, only to be sorrowfully separated until such time as they are born again.
Each chapter of the book contains several letters, diary entries, normal prose or notes from the fridge from different periods in history (or, for us mere 2016 readers, the future). The different stories are interwoven and mirror what is happening in each time landscape. All of the time landscapes are perfectly written, and with four of them at once, you feel completely immersed in the plots. By the end of it I was internally shouting, screaming and crying. I would have done all of these things externally, but normal people (cough) don’t do such things while in the company of others.
This book was beautifully and masterfully written and I cannot wait for the sequel. At the end of the blurb, are these words:
Maybe the next together will different...
I sincerely hope that the quality of the sequel will be no different. This book is the kind that you want to use as a pillow so that some of its brilliance flows into you.
(Note: I’ve tried that – it doesn’t work. Yet.)
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
