Review by aacodreanu -- Yesterday by Samyann

[aacodreanu]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Yesterday" by Samyann.]

---

3 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

Samyann writes Yesterday – A Novel of Reincarnation. What we know about the author is that when she wrote her presentation in her blog she was living in Chicago, contemplating writing a new book while sipping a glass of Merlot.

Reincarnation is not the main topic, even if present in the title. The novel is a sweet romance with all the elements consecrated by the genre: beautiful and handsome protagonists, positive feelings, a lot of turmoil. Will the ending contradict the expectations?

Blue-eyed, dark-haired, beautiful Amanda Parker witnesses an accident and saves the life of a policeman about to be crushed by a falling train wagon. It is love at first sight, associated with a feeling of déjà vu. Both Amanda and Mark have the vague impression that they know each other, although their life courses disprove it. There is also the complication of Amanda's belief that all people she loves will end up dying on her. It has happened so far: parents, elder brother, fiancé. So Amanda fights her love for Officer Mark Callahan. Luckily, she has an aunt, Mary, who worries about her life and does everything to help her. Mary has taken care of her and her younger brother ever since the other members of Amanda’s family died. She is a psychologist and, together with Mark, they convince Amanda to take trips into her past lives, by hypnotic regression.

A grandfather clock that Amanda sees in the shop where she is brought after the accident also seems familiar to Amanda, as is its chime. Her training as an antiquarian, along with Mark's investigative tools as a policeman, help them learn about the clock's life, from the moment it was made, in Europe, in the eighteenth century.

By regression, Amanda gets to the time of the Civil War. She identifies herself as Bonnie, a six-year-old. who flees the war with her father, a slightly older cousin, and a family of liberated negroes, Magdalena and Ben, Magdalena being her nanny and the closest she has known as a mother figure.

Samyann’s style is baroque, with many adjectives in the descriptions of love encounters but also of antique objects and clothes from various periods. She uses Celtic and varieties of English to identify some of the characters. Another way to individualize characters is by their habits: Mark drinks whiskey, Amanda wine, and Mary only tea, Earl Grey if possible. Amanda has a black cat, Oprah, and Bonnie gets to live in a house with another black cat, Elektra, both fascinated by the chimes of the same grandfather clock.

The best in the book is the love story, described with all its torments, doubts and uncertainties. Mark is the perfect lover, wooing Amanda with words and gestures and his charming voice and presence. Also, the detective work they do on the clock and its chimes, similar to that of the bells of St. Michael’s Church, built in Charleston, South Carolina in 1751, is exciting. As a passionate of languages, I was impressed by the trouble the author took at devising dialogues between people who lived two hundred years ago, both white and colored, even if, at times, it was difficult for me to follow.

The episodes experienced by Amanda in regression reminded me of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind: Bonnie's name seems to have been borrowed from that novel.

Reading the book should be enjoyable for the lovers of the genre of all ages, with no explicit sex scenes being present. There are just the naughty comments Mary makes that put salt and pepper to the narrative.

The editing of the book is good, I could only identify two typos. My rating is three out of four stars, mostly because of the extensive dialogues, that are sometimes boring and invite to skipping, and the lack of depth of some of the characters, more like sketches of prototypes, without real substance.

******
Yesterday
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

[aacodreanu]

I apologize for using the word "colored". I did not know it is offensive. I just took it from the text of the book, in which context it was not. I am sorry if I have hurt anybody's feelings, it was not my intention at all.