REMEMBRANCE by Jude Deveraux

REMEMBRANCE by Jude Deveraux (Published by Simon and Schuster, 2004)
Hayden Lane is a 39-year old romance writer, with a perfect fiancé, a supportive editor and an altogether successful, perfect little life. All this comes crashing down when Hayden becomes increasingly obsessed with the hero of her latest romance novel to the exclusion of everything else. She loses her fiancé, has angered and alienated her editor and starts to lose her sense of reality. Desperation sends Hayden to a psychic, Nora, and she discovers that all her problems stem from unfulfilled love in her past lives. Through several sessions with Nora, Hayden learns about soul mates, past lives and how each life affects the next life in reincarnation. Nora explains to Hayden that when the very first souls were created, they were split in half, one male and one female; hence, a soul mate is the other half of you. Something has happened somewhere in Hayden’s past lives with her soul mate and as a result she wouldn’t find her soul mate again for three more lifetimes. Hayden's immediate response to being told she wouldn’t find that grand passion that she has desperately been seeking is: “I’m an American and I want instant gratification.”

Since Nora has been able to give her several clues as to who she might have been in a past life, Hayden, no stranger to research, delves into the archives at her library and discovers that she was Lady Catherine de Grey who lived in Edwardian England. Hayden also discovers, much to her horror, that Lady Catherine de Grey was a woman who had many affairs and that she died mysteriously, her body never having been found and that her husband, the Earl de Grey, also died on the very same day his wife had died. Believing she can straighten out whatever problem was caused in that life, Hayden finds someone who does past life regressions.

Heedless of the strong warning the Nora has given her not to be regressed to see her past lives, Hayden dives headfirst into dangerous waters when she does just that. When she awakens in Edwardian England as Lady Catherine de Grey and is unable to return, she panics and searches for another “seer” who can help her get back to her present incarnation. However, this time she is catapulted back further in time and her last conscious thoughts are that she is trapped, she has to get out and she realizes that she is a baby about to be born.

What develops from here is a totally amazing love story. Love, hate, obsession, jealousy, a curse and revenge all revolve around two innocent and wonderful young people, Talis and Callie, who love each other with a passion that cannot be denied. Talis' and Callie’s characters were truly one being, each living for and incomplete without the other. This is more than an ordinary love story. It is a remarkable story of two people who are meant to be together, through heartache and loss, separation and tragedy and who are desperate to find the other through the centuries. There are three stories here, but they are all about the same two souls and it works. It starts out a little slow, but don’t put this book down! It is a wonderful book that will touch your heart and a story that you won't soon forget. And, I suggest having tissues close at hand. I loved this book. I highly recommend it. REMEMBRANCE by Jude Deveraux is a keeper!