This was so lovely. I am a sucked for a love you in every lifetime story but the way this was executed was so complex and excellent and I was on the edge of my seat from page one. The tension between Evelyn and Arden was well developed and heart-breaking and I just really loved this concept. Thank you to the author and the publisher for this early copy of the book. My thoughts are my own.

in the words of lady gaga: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular.

this was such a beautiful story, it was heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time, it chewed me up, spit me out and put me back together in the space of 350 pages.

trying to explain the premise of this book to my husband went a little like this:

me: so there’s two characters. evelyn and arden. and they’ve lived a thousand lives and manage to find each other in every single one.

my husband: aww that’s so sweet!

me: and kill each other.

my husband: oh.

i loved the back and forth between present day evelyn and arden, and their previous lives. i loved the fact that each life, so different from the last, still had those similarities of love, loss and grief. how evelyn loves so deeply and so profoundly for her family and those around her, and arden loves evelyn just the same, always has and always will. i’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

thank you to netgalley and st. martin’s press for the arc.

Our Infinite Fates is a story told over a millennia. The concept of reincarnation where you’re fated to kill the one you love over and over again has always been intriguing to me and the way this was written was deeply poetic.

There were so many beautifully written passages about love and many sad, poignant moments throughout.

I only wish the time spent between Evelyn and Arden’s past lives and their present life was more balanced in the storytelling. I didn’t feel like we spent enough time in any of their past lives and especially not enough time in the present to really know why they loved each other so much other than it was just expected of them.

Overall an enjoyable read and recommend if you like reincarnation stories.

4 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this eArc.

This story is beautiful and lyrical and inspiring and heartwrenching in equal measures. This is a book that has such staying power. Such thoughtfulness and research that went into it. Truly a masterpiece.

Beautiful, tragic, and utterly poetic—this book consumed me. Our Infinite Fates is a story of pain, angst, and yearning, woven into a breathtaking narrative that refuses to let go. Arden and Evelyn’s love is doomed to an endless cycle—one where Arden must kill Evelyn in every life they are reincarnated into. Yet, despite the inevitability of their fate, their love endures for over a century, defying time, reason, and morality itself.

I devoured this book in just two days, and I’ll never be the same. Laura Steven’s writing is stunning, lyrical, and deeply emotional. This story didn’t just break me—it crushed me, pieced me back together, and then did it all over again. From the very first page, I was hooked, swept away by the tragic beauty of Arden and Evelyn’s love story.

Some lines will stay with me forever:

“I love you, I have loved you, and I will love you.”

“If a hero is someone who will give up love to save the world, then a villain is the reverse. Someone who will give up the world to save love.”

“I still believe.”

I wish I could tattoo the entirety of this manuscript onto my body to bear the words for rest of my existence within this body. Holy fucking shit. This book was so profoundly beautiful that I fear I do not have the proper words to express my feelings about it, but I shall try anyway.

Not only was this book so eloquently written, the story flowing like poetry, but it was such a powerful concept to tackle, yet the author did it so gracefully. Never in my life have I shed tears over beautifully written words the way I did this story.

I walked away from this full of gratitude, grief, hope, and a new found sense of appreciation for the lifetime I am currently living. Whether you believe in the concept of reincarnation or not, you cannot deny the utter joy and grief and terrible pain that comes with living, loving, and learning through the human experience, and this book makes you see it all in its tragically gorgeous truth.

I am truly breathless. This is EASILY my favorite stand alone I think I have ever read in my entire life.

There are truly no words for all that this book is. Wow. Just wow. 😭💗

Overall I did quite enjoy this book. I think it lost points for me because the repetitiveness of the killing and the different places and Arden refusing to give any information about how they ended up this way just went on for a little too long for my taste. It started to feel like the book would never get to the climax. And even when the twist was revealed it felt slightly underwhelming because there really was not build up surrounding the Mother or the original bargain. I did still find the different lives and locations really fun to read and see played out and was glad that there was more than just one or two highlighted time periods.

This book was a 3.25-3.5 for me up until THAT TWIST! I really didn’t think the author would be able to surprise me like that. The last 25% really pulled me into it all and connected with my emotions.

Unfortunately, the first 75% did not really do that for me, and honestly was losing me a bit before I got to the twist. The prose is beautiful and flows nicely for the most part, but I feel this is one of those books where deep, eloquent statements are made a little too often, causing them to lose some of their impact/become a bit tedious. I did enjoy the writing style for the most part, though, and I feel the author did a great job building up richness in the characters’ surroundings. While I didn’t love the actual romance, this book was written SO romantically. I also loved how the MCs came back as such a variety of people, inclusive of different gender identities and sexual orientations - a real “love transcends all” theme. However, I do feel there was a missed opportunity to show how that variety was treated by the world around them at different time periods.

In terms of characters, I was Arden’s biggest hater (still am) and also grew more and more frustrated with Evelyn as well. My favorite relationship in this book wasn’t the romantic one, but rather how the MCs connected with their families/side characters. I think the main issue for me, though, was I felt the vignettes of their infinite lives were too short and numerous. I wanted to connect and feel more from these MCs, but instead I was just given a taste and then the book moved on. This made it so I didn’t care enough about any of these portions of their timelines, and it started to feel a bit like time wasted since the approach went on for so long. Take my opinion with a grain of salt though - I have trouble feeling a satisfactory amount of depth with any sort of short story, but I know others might not.

Overall, this was nice and poignant and beautiful. But the concept behind the book wasn’t brought to its full potential, from my perspective.

(Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for the eARC. All opinions are my own.)

Evelyn and Arden are eternally bound together, destined to be reborn time and again, never reaching their shared eighteenth birthday. For over ten hundred years, they have been stuck together in an endless cycle of love and loss.

TLDR: The premise of this book initially captured my attention, star-crossed lovers fated to love and lose each other, however the execution fell flat. I feel like I was left with more questions than answers. There was a lot of fluff in the middle of the book that could have been better utilized in the ending.

Where this book shines in its lush imagery and beautiful prose. The word choice was lyrical, almost elevated and poetic. Scenes and feelings were conveyed through vivid, layered descriptions rather than direct sentences.

Yet the beauty of the words could not shake me from wanting more answers about the plot and character motivations. Evelyn’s and Arden’s love for one another, meant to transcend lifetimes, remains frustratingly out of reach for the majority of the book. We are only offered small glimpses into their eternal love. Yes, their love is undeniable and spans hundreds of lifetimes, yet I was left wanting more. More yearning, more tension, more emotional impact to their love and loss. I also wanted more of an explanation as to why they were bound in this endless cycle, not just the fact that they were.

The frequent visits to past lives follow a predictable pattern: jump to the past, meet two new Evelyns and Ardens, learn of their love for one another, witness their demise, and ultimately rebirth. Each journey to a past life interrupted the momentum of the present timeline and led to inconsistent pacing.

I recommend this book to a reader who enjoys:
+ lyrical, atmospheric writing
+ tragic, star-crossed lovers
+ fated love and reincarnation
+ slow, immersive storytelling

Thank you Macmillan Audio & Wednesday Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Let me start by saying this book was a lot of fun! If you are looking for a fast-paced YA fantasy enemies-to-lovers style book I think you will enjoy this. However, it ended up falling a little short for me. Perhaps, I am not the intended audience. As you can tell I don't love giving low ratings—and yet I want to be genuine with how I review this book. I enjoyed the poetry throughout and seeing the development of the relationship between our two main characters throughout the flashbacks. Although, I felt we didn't spend enough time with them in the present or past to root for their relationship. The twist at the end felt somewhat random and the ending was extremely rushed. I would still recommend you check it out for yourself especially if you love YA. My expectations were very high for this book because the plot sounded so intriguing to me, however, it ended up being a 3-star read. Still enjoyable, but not something I would scream from the rooftops about.

I love books that have links through time, fate mates, and romance. I don't know what it was, this just did not connect with me.

e-ARC & audio-ARC from NetGalley.

They have known each other for a thousand years. They've killed each other before their eighteenth birthdays in every single one of them. They've been in love almost every time.

I think this is perfect for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Immortal existentialism over centuries seems to strike a cord for many, permanently marking the hearts and souls of those who need it.

Unfortunately, I think that the banality of immortality is just not for me. There's a hopelessness to it that makes it impossible for me to root for, to connect with, these stories. It's like the tale is infinite, while my intrigue is not.

The book started strong. The concept is fascinating. But, before long, it became less devastating and more repetitive. I started to wonder why our protagonist was so desperate to stay alive. Arden's secrecy around why he constantly had to kill her felt abusive instead of protective. The flashbacks to past lives felt unnecessary.

Ultimately, the writing was fine, but the story just wasn't for me. (Nor was the narrator's pronunciation.)

Okay! So this was a solid three star read for me and I think generally it’s a very cool story with a very cool premise! Our main characters are 17 (sorta) and sometimes when I read such young characters the story still reads very new adult/adult. In this case, however, the story reads on the lower end of YA. If I was 15 this would be the coolest story ever. Unfortunately it was not complex or nuanced enough for me.

Let me start with what I liked! There were some stunning lines! I enjoyed the imagery and when we got whole sections describing the love Evelyn felt for Arden and/or her families, I was moved! It was pretty cool to have the present day timeline in Wales and then the flashbacks that went progressively further back in time. At first it felt exciting and well-paced! The twist at the end I did not see coming and I was really trying to figure it out! It was also somewhat suspenseful trying to figure out just how and when they would die.

Now on to what was not my favorite. After a bit the past timelines felt super redundant. It was the same formula for those chapters and it didn’t really help me understand why they were so in love with one another. They also weren’t complex enough?? Like they gave you just the bare minimum taste for the different country/culture/language/timeline and then bam. It was over and never revisited. It would’ve been nice to stay in some of those timelines for longer to really feel the emotional impact. My biggest qualm was the ending. It was kinda goofy and rushed. It was so easy to solve it all at the end in like two chapters. Again felt very young for the lack of complexity and nuance. And I feel there were missed opportunities to really have some conversation/discussion on religion, reincarnation, meaning of life, gender, etc.

But all that to say I don’t think that was the authors intention with this story! I think it did what she sought to do. I think the marketing could’ve been wayyyy better though because really this feels like young teen fiction but I feel like it’s trying to be adult. But now I have a new rec for the teens in my life so that’s not bad! (Oh also there is a vague open door scene that is not explicit at all)

Thanks Net Galley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for my e-arc!!

This was so good! A reincarnation story is always a favorite for me, but it is hard to pull off well. I'm happy to say this one definitely delivered! The writing was so lush and descriptive without weighing the story down. There are so many good lines from every chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed the back-and-forth between the present day timeline and their past lives and how heartbreaking both were. The entire book I had a pit in my stomach because I was nervous about how it was going to end and I cared so much about Evelyn and Arden. The end of the story got a little bit wild for me, but the book was just so so good overall I can't really be mad about it. I can't wait to read anything else by this author, as I'm sure I'll love it as well.

This book started off really slow for me and I almost DNF'd it, but i'm glad I didn't! It started picking up and then the ending was so unexpected. I think people will love this book.

Everything about this book is extremely my shit. From the moment I saw this plot description I knew I would love this book and I am so happy that I was right. Addie LaRue meets This is How You Lose the Time War? Say less. I've been obsessed with past lives romances since I was a baby on fanfiction.net (yeah I predate AO3 because I am OLD what about it?). Past life lovers fated to kill the other before they can turn 18? Inject it into my veins.

I am so happy this book delivered on its perfect premise and more. Steven is such a beautiful writer and I appreciated every single word she put on the page. The way she sprinkled in information about the past lives and then we got to see the alternating chapters giving us glimpses into all of them? The research and time that must have went into this is so appreciated. I can see all the work that went into every line of this. It was so thoughtful and perfect. I wish I could have entire books dedicated to the lives these characters lived. Evelyn and Arden have my heart and this review definitely falls short of how much I love them and this book.

The present day chapters have such a sense of urgency and I was at the edge of my seat hoping and wondering if Evelyn would be able to save her sister before she turned 18 and the cycle started again. And I thought the "who is Arden" reveal took my breath away. I had no idea how this book would end and I was so here for every part of the journey.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

4.25

I bumped my rating down a bit from when I first read it. My initial reaction definitely made me rethink how many stars I should give this. I really enjoyed the majority of the book, but the ending was a bit of a letdown, which made me deduct some points.

Evelyn and Arden have been reincarnating every 17 years. As they approach their 18th birthday, one has to kill the other to prevent some horrible thing from happening. Their souls are linked, so when one dies, the other dies as well. Evelyn doesn't remember why Arden continues to kill her because he won't tell her. Despite this, they both love each other deeply and always find each other in the next life.

I really liked so many aspects of this book. There is gender fluidity for the characters as they reincarnate over and over. I enjoyed the chapters from their past lives. I liked seeing the characters not limited to the gender roles and often times they ended up as a gay couple. They even talk about their feelings on what genders they are born as and use they/them pronouns. It's very refreshing. The past lives show us the terrible fate they've had to endure and the desperate desire to live past their 18th birthday.

Evelyn's desire to continue living through this life is great, and I think that's why I was a little disappointed in the end. The reason they are stuck reincarnating is well done, and I had no idea what was going to happen with that. I just didn't like the end result. The Wales family just doesn't get the satisfying conclusion.

I enjoyed so much of this story, but the ending was such a letdown. I do love that this was a standalone, and I think many people will enjoy this book. Despite my disappointment, I still think very highly of it.

I genuinely have no idea what I expected going into this book, but I did not actually think I’d come to love it the way I did. This was such a good read, and it even made me enjoy a first person pov. I’m now envious of the me from 10 hours ago who was reading this for the first time.

It reminded me so much of Fallen by Lauren Kate and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in the best ways. And I’m happy I did give it a go.

I absolutely loved this story. The writing hooked me immediately and the story was so gripping. The writing was so poetic and beautifully captured all the feelings of love and grief and everything in between. I would say the ending twist kind of felt out of nowhere, but the overarching message of love that transcends time, gender, socioeconomic status, race, etc was so beautiful.

I don’t know what to say because I’m honestly broken into a thousand pieces right now. This book was beautiful and one of the best things I’ve read. The poetry of it all is just amazing and there are no words to describe it that give this story justice. I will forever love Evelyn and Arden, the two souls forever intertwined through time and now with me.

God I’m literally just a speechless sobbing mess right now, I don’t have much to say tbh. It was one of the best books I’ve read in my life, but in its own way. Kind of like “this book is so amazing that it’s just in its own category it’s that good” cause like I’ve read absolutely outstanding books but this one is just the best for different reasons. Like it just can’t stand next to any others, it’s on its own level.

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc!!