For Better or for Worse

by Ingrid Nickelsen

[Sarah Says]

The story follows Eve (Evangeline) through her death and subsequent kind of life.

It starts off with an emotional scene between a teenage Eve and her boyfriend. We see Eve in her “safe Place” with the Boy she loves. It then changes and we realise that it was a flash back dream and 73 year old current Eve had fallen asleep on the couch reading an old diary. The first chapter went on to add the characters of her husband and daughter. Within the first chapter I already liked Eve and cared about her. And then she dies in a car accident – but I knew that was coming sooner or later anyway.

Things get a little bazar after that, Eve can’t remember who she is, she’s in this strange new world, thinking it’s some sort of heaven. She guesses by her appearance she is about 18-19 years. She goes on to find out she’s been given a Godmother named Brielle.

Enter Will with his “dark and sinful beauty” – right away he sounds like my kind of fella. But I must have trust issues as I was immediately looking out for a bad guy in this book. I could say that the bad guys were the Midnight Hunters, but it’s really much more complicated than that.

I was really struggling, with this very bazar and trippy world for a while, Eve’s confused, so I’m confused – I feel her frustration etc. The frustration did push me to keep reading, as I wanted Eve to figure out what the heck was going on.

Eve then goes on a candle induced drug trip. She gets a glimpse of her husband at the age that he died and her daughter as a baby. Some might find it rather ludicrous, but it was needed to get the story going as the trip gave Eve the desire to find out if she in fact wasn't alone when she died.

Now the story really starts to pick up pace as we find out danger is all around and nothing is as it seems. We learn that this strange world isn’t the afterlife but really a journey in-between. We find out Will is a wanderer being hunted by the midnight hunters. We find out about Brielle having a tainted past and get a closer look at some of the other background characters.

Eve learns Will looked for her, the first clue we get into deeper Will. Eve gets the chance to see a bigger part of the in-between world she’s ended up in and it’s not nice! And after looking like all her attempts at finding the man she died with, the man who we as the reader know is her 73 year old husband Josh, She meets him, be it a teenage version.

Than Bam we get heavy scene with Eve finally remembering something (A big chunk of something) and we are sent back to the first scene in the book. I can’t say much more about this or I’ll give the big dramatic ending away. All I will say is the the last three chapters in the book are intense. So full of emotions it makes up for any lows in the book. It made up for any moments when I went, what the!

So don’t be put off by afterlife’s and godmothers (which are more like guides), the Characters, the suspense & mystery and most of all, the love are worth it. Love shines out of this book.

(This bit won’t make sense unless you’ve read the book) I finished reading it and immediately had an argument with myself. My Mummy Brain was angry saying, if Eve had regained all her memory surely she would have stayed at the ceremony. But then the romantic soul trapped inside of me said, don’t be stupid you can’t give up a second change and then I decided that yes, I would have made the same choice as Eve, restored memory or not!

Also the Epilogue seems to be setting up for a sequel that I’d very much like to read J

An absolutely fabulous debut novel from Ms Nickelsen