⭐️⭐️⭐️- so poetic and interesting. Having flashbacks to past lives whilst set in present was so much fun and gave such a unique experience to the book.

I found this book really hard to read but I actually do think it was just me reading it at the wrong time. The writing was poetic and flowed very well and the world was fascinating and ever changing which was really interesting.

I didn’t really connect with the characters very much leaving me confused at times and feeling very indifferent to what was happening.

But the storyline and premise was amazing and i really loved the idea of past and present lives and the timeline of the story.

The story itself is unique with two fated souls that are forever intertwined in all lifetimes but are doomed to be hunting/ hunted by one another! This book has so much promise and I just felt like I want more. The ending left me feeling unfinished.

Thank you to netgalley, Penguin and Laura Steven’s for an ARC of this book 🩷🩷

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

ARC Review

What a beautiful story.

This is such a unique concept and is packed full of tension and excitement. It had me hooked very early on and my emotions were taken on a wonderful roller coaster.

The ending may have fallen in quality slightly, but I cannot give this book anything less than 5 ⭐️s.

I really loved all of Arden and Evelyn’s iterations. I enjoyed both how they developed and grew as characters throughout and also the dip into different cultures and periods across time.

You are also kept intrigued and guessing m throughout.

This will easily be a top read for the year and I know I will reread it again!

Themes/Tropes:
Low Fantasy, Romance/Romantasy, YA, Good vs Evil, Chosen One, Hero’s Journey, Survival, Dark, Coming of Age, Found Family, Loyal Sidekick, Tragic Backstory, Emotional Scars, Second Chance, Fated Love, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Morally Grey, Forced/Close Proximity, Disability Rep, Mental Health Rep, LGBTQIA+ Rep & Multi POV.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

2/5 🌶

Thank you to the publishers for sending me a copy in exchange for a review.

This book was gorgeous and had a really interesting plot that I hadn't seen before with the time lines littered throughout. I will admit some of the decisions made by our main character Evelyn (Branwen) when she's trying to work out who may be Arden in this timeline was a little strange but I understood her desperation.

So tragic and beautiful. Move over Romeo and Juliet, this tale deserves more accolades.

This was a beautifully written debut novel that has me so intrigued for what the author is going to do next. I loved the non-linear storytelling and interludes to different eras that Evelyn and Arden lived in together, but the Wales story was also fantastic. Both main characters were consistent despite them having multiple names and identities across time, which I really appreciated as well. I blew through this in one day for a reason, I loved the writing and the story did such a good job of keeping me invested. My only gripe was that the twist and ending felt a bit rushed.

I have previously read from Laura Steven and loved the books that I have read from her so have been excited about reading this one from her as soon as it was beginning to be teased. It didn’t disappoint me either.

Our Infinite Fates follows Evelyn who remembers all of her past lives and how she had died before turning eighteen in each one. The issue is that she wants to continue to live in this life and be able to give her little sister a life saving bone marrow transplant.

This was a book that I was immediately sucked into. I really liked how we saw the past lives throughout the story and how the entire book is fast paced and the format kept me engaged. By seeing so many past lives I feel like I got to know who Evelyn, and in many ways Arden, as I saw their past experiences and how the trauma of these lives impacted their current lives.

This book also felt quite powerful. It explored so many important messages including what it means to live and love people. In many ways it got me thinking which I always like from books.

I really felt for Evelyn throughout the story. I could really understand her feelings in her current life and all of the past lives we experienced. She felt like the same person throughout the story no matter what body she was in which helped add to how strongly I felt for her as things got challenging. I also think that this was added to by the story being told in first person giving the reader a greater idea of what Evelyn members and how she felt about things.

I found the current life to be really interesting and I loved the family that we were surrounded by. Gracie and Evelyn’s mum made up some parts of the book that I really loved and while also rooting for Evelyn, I was rooting for Gracie getting better. I liked how we had the storyline of Evelyn wanting to help her family in the current life and the overarching plot throughout every life of why this was happening to Evelyn and Arden. They felt interlinked but separate enough that both had me turning the pages.

Also as someone with connections to South Wales it was really cool to see all the place names that I recognised throughout the book.

Overall, I had a fantastic time with this book and am so glad that I have now actually read it. Being someone who has previously loved Laura Steven’s books I’m so glad that this one held up and I can’t wait to read her next YA book. Highly recommend picking this one up if you haven’t already read it and it interests you.

Wow. Well that was stunning.

From the start I loved this. God I love Laura’s writing so much. Early on I was intrigued but unsure why you’d be friendly with/ fall for your killer but by halfway I could see how we got their chargrin as well as their callousness, their love as well as their hate. The relationship is so intriguing. Honestly the power to not only dream this up but to write it up and have it make sense is mind blowing.

I had no clues as to how this would play out on reasoning for it all and I loved how it did. There’s no way to discuss all my feelings and thoughts on it all without being horrifically spoilery so I won’t, but I desperately want to!

Then the ending. I love the ambiguity. Again something I have a lot of spoilery thoughts on! It is both a little heartbreaking and a lot hopeful and I adored it.

I loved that we finally got to know the beginning, and why Arden remembered more than Evelyn, and why he doesn’t tell her. I loved their relationship so much, it is inevitable, it is a broken heart in a delicate glass jar.

This will definitely sit with me.
“I love you, I have loved you and I will love you”. Powerful and true ❤️💔❤️

This is super slow burn, but in the best way and the writing is stunning. Thought provoking and beautiful.

5 glorious stars.

This is a book about a cursed love story through time, two lovers destined to kill each other repeatedly and be reborn, never to live past their 18. Our POV is Evelyn, who was married to Arden just before her 18th birthday several hundred years ago, only to be murdered - by him. She is reborn, falls in love with another who is revealed to be Arden and thus history repeats itself through the centuries until the present day. But never is it revealed to Evelyn why, and what would happen if somehow she evaded that fate? And now, not only is she is very happy in her current family, her sister’s life depends on her living beyond her 18 birthday. Can she strike a bargain with Arden, and can she figure out why this pattern is destined to repeat in perpetuity?

The way the story unfolds is the main storyline told for the present day (Set in Abergavenny Wales - love that we have a story set in a small Welsh town, somewhere I know and feels familiar), interspersed with flashback chapters to episodes from Evelyn’s previous lives - and deaths. It reads like a hybrid of historical and fantasy fiction, crossed with myth, exploring concepts of not only romantic love, but familial love, identity, gender (it’s not made a big thing, but I loved that Arden and Evelyn would be reborn variably into male/female bodies, yet their love remained unchanged), with a hefty dose of mystery thrown in.

I haven’t read anything quite like this before, (perhaps the closest would be Addie La Rue, which has similar feel but ultimately are completely different stories), and I have to admit going into it I was unsure if it would be for me. I enjoy a good romance novel as much as the next girl, but the premise suggested the storyline could be a little predictable and cliche. It was not. Lauren’s writing is beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

♾️⭐

I was already loving this book, but the last 30% or so is what solidified its place amongst my most favourite books. A day later and I'm still fighting the headache from crying so much while reading, not to say I still feel like crying if I feel about Evelyn and Arden for too long.

To put it shortly, and in a way that won't take away any magic from other people's reading experience, in "Our Infinite Fates" we follow Evelyn and Arden as they meet each other time and time again, in every lifetime. However, in each one they died at the hands of another, and we get to discover how it started and what follows.

There are so many themes that will tug on your heart strings - family, love, sacrifice, grief, the passing of time... You'll find what you need at given time in these pages.

The narration isn't chronological as we follow Evelyn and Arden's lifetimes at different points in history. Each flashback fits well within the present day timeline, but I already know I want to reread the book and follow the chronological order. See if it's as much - or more - heartbreaking.

Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House UK Children's and Laura Steven for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Auch wenn es immer wieder zu tragischen Enden kommt und die Protagonisten so viele Leben gelebt haben, war ich jedes Mal gerührt davon, wie sie immer wieder zueinander gefunden haben, sei es im Guten oder Schlechten. Unendliche Verbundenheit war noch nie so tragisch und so schön.

This was a compelling enough read. The narrative was well-paced and the chapters jumping between different lives was clear enough to follow.
A lot of work went into evoking the different time periods and lives so the story was quite rich.
It did feel sometimes that more detail and fleshing out of some periods would have made the narrative even more absorbing.
There was also a lot of repetition of certain words like 'parse' which was a bit jarring in the flow of the text.
But overall, this was a diverting story with a good twist at the end.

It is very rare that I find a book that I connect with on this level, I knew from the prologue that this was going to be a good one.
I adore a bittersweet love story - 'And together we were sacrilege' - that slices your heart to ribbons. This did that so beautifully.
The weave of subtle yet astute social commentary, the rich tapestry of language pulled from all corners of the earth and time, tiny details woven into the sorry telling - (vial of sugar water, the Siberian embrace), humorous, down-to-earth interactions, the lived-in Britishness of it all. I would fall in love

I really enjoyed this unique tale! I loved all the different lives between Evelyn and Arden that we get glances of! This story really shows the power of love above all else! I look forward to reading more books from this author.

It honestly took me by surprise how much I enjoyed this book!
The prose is beautiful and the plot draws you in right from the very start!

*4.5 stars*

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eArc of this book.

This book beautifully covers a centuries-long love story between two people whose lives have somehow become irrevocably intertwined, spanning a multitude of historical periods and locations to build a truly impactful story. The themes of gender identity and queer love were set against a myriad of backdrops throughout this novel, giving both an insight into the attitudes towards queerness at the time, whilst also simultaneously showing how queerness has existed throughout history, even if we're not necessarily taught about it.

The first half of this novel was genuinely one of the best things I have ever read. The language choices that Laura Steven's makes had me so encapsulated in the story, and I loved having the flashbacks to their previous lives and learning not just about them but about the historical periods. I was also so intrigued as to why they were in the predicament they were in, and I feel like this was a really motivating factor that kept me hooked in the story.

I will say that the second half of the story fell off a bit for me, especially the very end of the novel, but maybe this will be edited slightly for the final version. However, I still massively enjoyed myself and I know this will be a book that I keep thinking about for a long time, and recommend to lots of people. It also didn't read very YA to me, so if that is something that would put you off picking this one up, don't let it.

I would say the characters are what make this book so special. Arden was my favourite for sure, especially what we saw of him in Siberia. I feel that we only got small glimpses of his true feelings and thoughts, but what he goes through in the book really tugged at my heart strings. I also really loved Evelyn, and I think it was really interesting being in her POV, as she is completely unaware of why everything is happening, so it makes the reader feel a connection to her.

This is the second book of Laura Steven's that I have read, and I am happy to say that they were both great reads for me. I look forward to whatever she puts out in the future.

This was one of my most anticipated 2025 releases and it did not disappoint. It's a very different take on romantasy with LGBTQ+ representation and a multitude of layers of love. It has the most satisfying ending with the most soul destroying plot, and I fell in love with both main characters almost instantaneously. I loved the time jumps to different periods in their very long lives, and Steven is amazing at writing emotion and making you care for characters you only see for a chapter.

this was such an interesting book!!
the romance was very well executed, and i really loved the dynamic between our two main characters. i thought i knew how the story was going to end–but then i didn't. i love how this kept me on my toes!

An intriguing fantasy which pulls you in and leaves you wondering how, when and who?
The characters were likeable, and it was an interesting ending, although not quite what I imagined.

Laura Steven has such a way with words and this may be my favourite story of hers so far. Enchanting writing, a magical setting and characters you root for.

Really enjoyed this and it was a unique and interesting concept. Evelyn and Arden’s love story was epic and had so many layers, I was dying to know how it all started and learn the mystery of their beginning

I don’t think I can properly express my love for this book. It was thrilling, it was romantic, it was mysterious. I loved the characters, I loved the plot and the ending was completely satisfying if a little sad.

For anyone wondering how a romance works when the love interest is trying to kill the main character… trust me, it works. Things aren’t as they seem and things get hinted at right from the start, until by the end you are rooting for this couple despite the odds.

This book has quite a few LGBTQ+ themes. Evelyn expresses herself as nonbinary or possibly some sort of genderqueer identity and multiple of their lives have them reincarnated into the same gender making the relationship queer. So while the majority of the novel is quite cishet, don’t fear, we are represented! Still I’m tagging this as LGBTQ+ themes rather than using my full LGBTQ+ tags because I think people looking for a queer novel would be disappointed if they picked this up expecting something else

Overall, this book was just perfect. It’s a novel that I think everyone should read.