Incarnate by Jodi Meadows

NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are suspicious and afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

Jodi Meadows expertly weaves soul-deep romance, fantasy, and danger into an extraordinary tale of new life.

I couldn’t help it. I know that you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover. Everyone says it. Everyone knows it. But come on, when you see a cover like the one for Incarnate, how can you possibly resist? It’s the first thing that drew me to this book. Then I read the synopsis and I got hooked. Lucky for me, the book lived up to the cover. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s my review.

Incarnate is a YA book with a totally different world than any I’ve ever read. I’ve read books about reincarnation before, but none with this twist. The people who live in the world that Jodi Meadows has created are not only reincarnated, but they remember every past life that they have ever lived. Everyone except for Ana, because she is new. Kind of mind boggling if you try to stop and think about it. Ana had a hard time conceiving it too. It made her character very real to the reader. She was as new to this world as the reader was and it helped make her character easy to relate to and sympathize with. Throw in dragons, other strange creatures, really evil people and mysterious buildings that seem to have a life of their own and you can see why this book was a hard one to put down.

Ana has no self worth, but she is a strong character regardless. She has spent her life being told she served no purpose and wasn’t important to anyone. That’s one of the things that made her relationship with Sam so amazing. He was the first person who treated her as a person and not a mistake. It’s always great when you can watch a character turn into a totally different person by the end of a book. That’s what happens in Incarnate. The Ana we meet at the beginning isn’t the same Ana that we see at the end. Meadows does a wonderful job of not forcing the transition. She’s still struggling by the end, but not nearly as hopelessly as she was in the beginning or for the same reasons. Ana and Sam fed off of each other’s strength without even seeming to notice it.

There was so much unique and wonderful about this book, but I don’t want to give anything away. It was too much fun finding out about all the characters and mysterious aspects of the world that they lived so I don’t want to spoil it for anyone else. The supporting characters all play an important role and there is still some mystery about all of them that needs to be uncovered. We learn a lot in Incarnate, but the story is far from over. I can’t wait to see what Jodi Meadows has in store for the residents of Heart in the next book.

Incarnate is due to be released on January 31, 2012. It is available for pre-order at Amazon.