A Life Eternal

Product Information

Richard Ayre's A Life Eternal is a book that poses so many dilemmas. If you were able to live forever, how would you feel? Is it something to treasure or resent, the power of immortality. Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-life-eternal-richard-ayre/1137644772?ean=9781912946099 This is one of the few books I’ve ever read that I want others to read, so I can discuss it with them. It would be an excellent book for any book club! The highs of love and the depths of despair are all explored and in the end, it was life affirming. What you’d give to help others. The main character didn’t choose greatness with his life, his ordinariness made it so much more relatable. All in all, a victory for the author. His characterisation of the two protagonists is sublime, and we see their weaknesses as well as their obvious strenghts (especially Boswell's love of booze which is used at times for a bit of comic relief from all the mystery and horror. What you have to remember, Bill, is that life is a currency. A currency of time that has no worth, and yet is priceless. Without it we do not learn, we do not grow. Without time, how does the new born baby learn how to hold, how to grasp, how to stand, how to walk? Without time how does the tree grow, the seasons change, the years pass?’

Incredible. That's how I must describe this story. The characterisation of the two main protagonists, the so-called 'Emperor' himself, Qin, and the woman who finds herself trying to stop a war Qin is planning, is brilliant. The story takes us deep in Incredible. That's how I must describe this story. The characterisation of the two main protagonists, the so-called 'Emperor' himself, Qin, and the woman who finds herself trying to stop a war Qin is planning, is brilliant. The story takes us deep into the world of Chinese politics as well as the work of the CIA, MI6 and various other inteligence agencies. This fascination with endless life is what drew me into this story, and it was what kept me reading when I became a little weary of the main character. Rob Deakin is equal parts everyman and no-man, but is ultimately generally unlikeable and his “glass half-empty” personality made the times he lived through, and the people he interacted with more ‘history textbook’ and less ‘historical novel’. From the trenches of the Somme to the tranquillity of a rich English country estate; from the gangsters and molls of Prohibition New York City to the decadent nightlife of Weimar Berlin, Rob Deakin struggles to come to terms with the gift that helped him survive the trenches, while hunting a quarry both elusive and mysterious. During this journey he attracts love and death in equal – and equally devastating – measures.It was one of those books that made me forget I was reading - it was that well crafted and involving. Richard Ayre gives us Rob Deakin, a young man who has been blessed with eternal life. Or is it a curse? With descriptive, imaginative, spellbinding writing Richard takes us on Rob’s life journey to discover for ourselves if this “gift” Rob has received is a blessing or a curse. An emotional journey for sure as I cheered for Rob, felt sorrow, empathy, anger and love for him. I easily connected with and truly cared about him. Then we have the mysterious Medic, the true friend Jonathon Greene, the alluring Molly, the beautiful and wise Madeleine, the endearing Pearl, and many other wonderful characters that bring richness and depth to this story. The positives for this story are in its secondary character development and in the direct foreshadowing offered as occasional bridges between scenes, characters, and time periods. I also found the historical period details and descriptive recounting of certain scenes and locations where the story takes place, very satisfying. The sense of place is consistently strong, and that always earns points.

The author grounded the book with significant historical events planted throughout as recognisable milestones that acted as both anchors and showing the passing of time. R.F. Kuang, Sue Lynn Tan, Rebecca Ross, Kate Heartfield, N.E. Davenport, Saara El-Arifi, Juno Dawson and Sunyi Dean What if you knew you could never die? How different would your life be? How different would you be?A riveting and heart-breaking tale, simply and elegantly written in the first person, which puts a new spin on the classic themes of the immortality tale.

This is not just another trite tale or formulaic adventure; it has clearly been written by someone with a particular story they want to tell, and Richard Ayre’s passion to tell it well is evident throughout. I found myself easily carried along on the main character’s incredible journey, sharing his experiences and emotions. The author’s knowledge as a history teacher also shines through, and Ayre is able to deftly summarise the stark realities of key events of the twentieth century through the eyes of his protagonist in a way that’s always plausible and interesting. And if the sense of time is – quite rightly – the star of the show, the sense of place also deserves a mention. From the wilds of Northumberland to New York, Paris, London and Berlin, and from those big cities to the remotest corners of Scotland, all of these environments are portrayed brilliantly.We follow Rob through the decades and watch as he passes through the twentieth century into the twenty-first. Reading his adventures is like reading a fun history book. We see Rob through the bootlegging nineteen twenties in New York. We see him in Berlin during the rise of Hitler. He begins to feel apart from humanity, and this affects his mind and his judgement. The positives for this story are in its secondary character devel The quest to find out how this eternal life came about ran along side chapters of his life, the sort we all have, the places we live ad the relationships we’re in, yet we know, with some certainty that it’s going to end at some point. While the subject matter was sometimes confronting, I found Shadow of the Knife an enjoyable and engrossing read. I'd recommend it to any reader who enjoys gritty historical crime fiction - this is no cosy and refined parlour mystery - and/or has an interest in the early history of modern crime investigation.

The research, as well as the obvious personal knowledge of this dark and mysterious world, is laid bare by the author, whose understanding of this world has already been shown in his previous books 'Spy Game', 'Spy Dragon' and 'Spy Trap.' However, I found the depth 'Emperor' went into was breath-taking. I enjoyed the personal dramas of Qin, his family problems, and his constant need to keep on top of the generals and admirals of the Chinese armed forces, as well as the fast-paced excapades and investigations by Ava, the American analyst trying to use the leaks from a Chinese spy to save the world from possible armegeddon.What kind of trouble would you get into if you were immortal? Rob is a soldier in WWI and suffers injuries fighting that should have killed anyone, but when he’s on the verge of death, a strange man touches him, and Rob recovers fully. Doctors are baffled. Sooner or later it becomes obvious that Rob isn’t aging. What’s going on? This Sam is a very different man from that first novel. His alcoholism in that story saw him lurching from reality and actually believing he was in the 1930's. In this story, he has quit drinking, quit smoking, and has started boxing again to get himself straight. However, he is still on the tail of the bad guys, helped this time by the local police chief who relies on his less than 'by the book' abilities to bring in the villains. But he’s a good character to watch the world through the eyes of. And the characters he meets along the way… well they all change him in their own unique way.