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There are currently 41 member reviews
for Until the Next Time
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Jan B. (Tetonia, ID)
Reincarnation, Irish Style
This is an unusual storyline. It is a love story that takes place during "the troubles" of the 60's-70's. Yet it also spans through several lifetimes for many of the characters, as they recognize each other from past lives. I laughed, I was horrified, and I was mad at the American protagonists for their inflexible intellect. The idea of reincarnation as a given for this Irish crowd created a very interesting twist as the author used the past events as a way of looking at the present and the friendships and interactions between the different characters.
The story was pretty compelling, and what stands out for me is how much was done for the love of each other and for their country. There were so many twists and turns in the action in both the present and the past, I had to keep reading to keep it all together in my head. It left me really hoping that the two main characters would find each other in this lifetime.
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David S. (San Diego, CA)
Too Much Slang
An intriguing story line linking the history and troubles of the Irish people with reincarnation -- kept my interest but was also a frustrating read given the overuse of Irish slang that stilted the flow of the book and degraded the intelligence and wisdom of the Irish people.
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Sarah B. (Streamwood, IL)
Not what was expected
I was looking forward to something akin to the Time Travelers Wife. This wasn't it. It took me a long time to get into this, and when I did I got confused with characters, and the accents. I felt it had promise that it just didn't live up to.
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Betty B. (Irving, TX)
Until the Next Time
After reading about a third of Next Time, I was so lost I returned to the beginning and read with a pen in hand. I made notes of all the various relationships and that did help me follow the story in both time periods. This book has all the elements that I usually like. I just had difficulty connecting it all. Had it been told more straight-forwardly, I would have enjoyed it more.
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Nikki M. (Fort Wayne, IN)
Good first novel
This was a good book. Not great, but good. It got a little bogged down in places, but was overall an enjoyable read. I do agree with another reviewer that phonetic spellings following the Gaelic words and names would be helpful. I get frustrated trying to "pronounce" the words in my head (incorrectly, I'm sure!) and it distracts me from the story.
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Lisa B. (Denton, TX)
The Troubles and Reincarnation
I really wanted to love this book and liked the reincarnation idea as I really enjoyed that angle in books like Ferney, by James Long. The Irish setting was interesting and I found I got a bit of an insider's view on Ireland. However, I found that I didn't connect well with the characters and didn't care what happened to them and ended up skimming the final third of the book.
I also liked the idea of the chapters telling the story from the viewpoints of the two reincarnations of Mickaleen, but found it unbelievable that the Uncle would have written out entire conversations in Irish dialect in his journal. The theories on reincarnation and how organized religion carried hints to the truth of reincarnation was thought provoking, and left me pondering some ideas that will stick with me for a while. On the other hand, I felt like the reincarnation bits began to seem a bit like a long winded lecture and were a little heavy handed.
I think this could have been a much better book if the author would have gone further back in Ireland's history to explain the original source of the "troubles" and made the other parts shorter and less repetitious.
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Ruth O. (Downingtown, PA)
Fantasy and Reincarnation Elements
This book began with an interesting premise, with a young man receiving his late uncle’s diary for his 21st birthday—and the young man (Sean Michael) did not even know the uncle had ever existed! The rest of the book details Sean’s search for his uncle’s history. The chapters switched back and forth between viewpoints, and the dual heroes had reversed names (Michael Sean and Sean Michael) so it was difficult to keep track of the narrator at times. Midway through the book the story devolved into fantasy and reincarnation elements, neither of which particularly are of interest to me, and I generally don’t read books with these plot characteristics. Overall I had to force myself to finish it, although I would recommend it to a reader who likes plots with fantasy and reincarnation.
