The Next Together (The Next Together)

by Lauren James

[Kelly]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2015/10/the-next-together-by-lauren-james.html
The Next Together was a clever contemporary blending time travel and science fiction to create what is ultimately a romance across the ages. Told through a series of perspectives, it ultimately follows the story of Katherine and Matthew, two entities destined to navigate towards one another no matter what era they share. It's the year 2039 and Matthew has just strolled into Kate's science class at the University of Nottingham and instantly find themselves attracted to one another. Kate feels a sense of déjà vu and searches online to see where she may have seen Matthew before. But Kate finds more than she bargained for when not only Matthew's but her own namesake reveals a slain couple who are accused of terrorism by the very scientific laboratory in which they both worked. We only see snippets of their relationship through journal entries and notes between the married couple, Katherine is fun loving and jovial and the straight laced Matthew loved her deeply.

That's where I found myself starting to feel overwhelmed. It wasn't the flashbacks of a past era, but how Matthew, Katherine and their doppelgänger selves were connected. Those around them seemed to be aware of the phenomena but Kate and Matthew only experienced dreamlike flashbacks to eras neither could make sense of. I never really felt a sense of who Kate or Matthew was in any timeline and as much as I loved both 1746 and 1854 versions of themselves, it only complicated the storyline further. From what I gathered, each Katherine and Matthew live within the same era with one or both to die only to be reborn or appear in the next lifetime together. Aspects of the storyline seem to suggest that Kate and Matthew's multiple lives are one in the same, but as one dies another can take his or her place. In one scene when 2039 Kate is confronting her grandmother about her namesake, I was also under the understanding that 2019 Katherine was a close relative simply by how the circumstances were briefly explained. Confused? Me too.

I loved the whirlwind romance of 1745 in a time of war and invasion. A forbidden and tentative romance between the society elite in Kathrine and her stagecoach driver in Matthew. It was the the only relationship between the two that appealed to me and allowed me to invest in both characters. The Kate and Matt of 2039 felt as though they had very little connection and were sexually swept away with the thrill and unease of their investigation into clearing their namesakes of 2019. I just couldn't invest in their plight, not because of the whimsy and far fetched nature of their scenario, but neither were developed enough to care about sadly.

I have no doubt that I'll be within the small majority who wasn't enamored with the romance between Kate and Matthew that spans lifetimes, but sadly I couldn't connect with either character. The back and forth between characters and eras felt disjointed and I couldn't see the connection between the various namesakes beyond sharing the same name and perhaps Katherine's sense of humour. I enjoyed it for the unique premise but the ending felt messy and far more complicated than necessary. This is definitely a case of it's not you, it's me, where The Next Together is concerned and I expect this will become a favorite of readers of every genre. Just not myself unfortunately.