The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall

I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down.

The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall by Shannon Kirk and published today by Reputation Books will make the difference in the market. I am sure of it.
When I studied Dante Alighieri and his Comedia written in 1200 at the high school it was common opinion with the other colleagues and teacher that maybe, maybe Dante had had some visions of what it would have meant once dead Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

I have had the same sensation reading this book by Kirk.

Many compliments to Shannon because presented something precious, touching under many aspects.


The book starts with Vivienne who, thanks to a very bad incident while she is going to work, she is in South Boston and she works for a Publishing House, she is transported without too much hope of surviving from the many injuries at the hospital.

At the moment what we know of her is that she is married, happily married with Jack, and she has a son, Ivan.

At the hospital she starts to goes in and out. Sometimes she is conscious in the sense that she is still attracted by this life, other times no.
Why? In the second chapter the first appearance of Noah.

Who is Noah?

Noah was Vivienne biggest love of her life. He died tragically. He firstly had had an incident who had left his body severely injured and then the final departure. Vivienne suffered like a beast, because Noah to her meant all during her childhood and teenage age. They have been firstly friends, then a couple. They grew up together, slept together when children as friends, discovered the first kisses together, and the knowledge of their body, experienced life. All together.
Common friends, same passions.

Then this adverse destiny changed the cards on the life's table for Vivienne and Noah. Forever.

But can a real love die although one of the two doesn't exist anymore on this Earth?

Noah tells without too many compliments to Vivienne that she will die.
It is sure it's just a story of hours, days, who knows? Maybe he knows the answers but can't tell it. Maybe he is cheating but Noah has never cheated Vivienne.

Vivienne is still attracted by her life on this Earth, she has a son a very intelligent son and Good Lord, she loves her husband, maybe not the same love she experienced for Noah, but she fought also for winning Jack. Jack in fact was brilliantly in the happiest phase of his life when they fell in love: he would have married a beauty from Michigan, Stephany. Numerous sisters and brothers, the perfect girl.

Vivienne appeared like the "error."

But then the two fell in love and the story started to be positive for Vivienne.

Sure: Vivienne remembers Noah. She missed him so badly during all these years although of course life and work absorbed her a lot and life suck all our energies and sometimes past since there is not a brutal event able to bring it back is buried as it must be buried - I am sure it's not a fault but a necessity or just a word called Life -, in a distant corner of our soul.

Vivienne is remembering... Noah loved her and she loved him so badly.

Noah asks her to choose the Heaven she wants...Vivienne will choose the places of people attracted her the most stopping by in amazing places plenty of colors, beatitude where there is a profound peace and the hope of a great serenity.

They're artistic trips, (thanks for Milan!) with incredible friends like Armadillo, eccentric, an artist, with a special past, one of the closest Vivienne's friends.

At the very beginning of the tale there is also a different voice, the one of Marty: Marty is a nurse, from the profound South of the USA and with a Bostonian accent. Wonderfully portrayed Marty will try to keep alive Vivienne with all himself reading her journals, and telling her anecdotes, because she must return, wherever she is, she must return.

Problem is: Vivienne wants to return or she will choose to love for all her afterlife passionately her Noah?

Touching the choice of the new house of Vivienne when 25 years old she discovers to be pregnant and still unmarried. A victorian house bought for few dollars because the actual owner, we can say remembered Noah and remembered her, and their big love deciding to leave her the house for just a symbolic price.

And this house, in case of her departure couldn't be sold by Vivienne's husband leaving in case the choice at their son Ivan once Ivan 21 and only for financial necessities.

Ivan in fact loves this big house where he can plays where he can stays relaxed, surrounded by trees, a big garden and the magnificence of a countryside.

And I found extraordinary the description of Hell. It sounded like to be in one of the scene of Robin Williams' movie What Dreams May Come, where the protagonist is searching for his wife (she killed herself) and found her if I remember well in a sort of horrible grey field plenty of souls' heads...

Hell is grey. Hell is immobility and impossibility of doing anything. Hell is this. Maybe much more worse than flames and warm.

Another voice in the book the one of a very very old son of Vivienne, arrived at 98 years and plenty of children and great-children! What a joy. A life that closed the circle of its existence. Ivan told that no one of his family was called Vivienne after his mom's departure, because that name too important to all of them.

The writing-style of this writer is incredibly poetic and erudite. I loved it so badly from the first time I opened digitally this eBook thanks to NetGalley.

I wish all the best at this book!

Go for it, and buy it with the certainty that you will buy a memories more than a book about the after life or the sufferance.
There is the analysis of a life, friends, parents, relationship, work, passions.

And you will love it, exactly as I loved it.

I loved this book. I always enjoy a well written thoughtful story that helps people deal with death and how to handle grief. This is a book for adults and older teens that is a beautiful concept of what happens when you die. This concept of heaven is so soothing and a unique idea for people to preview what their perfect afterlife will be. I thought Vivienne was a great character and her outlook for heaven was a balance of her past and her hopes for her son Ivan. Years ago I read the book Elsewhere which had a similar idea for teens. You need to be prepared for the large emotional gamete you will experience but it's beautiful.

Have you ever wondered what Heaven will be like? I have, and this is what attracted me to this book. This is a fictional novel about Vivienne Marshall who had a horrible pedestrian accident while texting and walking. She is in and out of a coma while recovering in the ICU. Vivienne is a 35 year old single mother to a seven year old son, Ivan. When Vivienne is conscious she agonizes over his welfare but when she is in a coma she gets to sample different heavens. She is greeted by her departed soulmate Noah and he is her guide as she visits the heavens of others who have had an impact on her life. You will need to read the book to find out if she is giving the option of making a choice or if her fate is predetermined.
I liked how the author moved from consciousness to coma. Vivienne awoke in the ICU to the care of her special nurse Marty and then slipped back into her heavenly visitations while unconscious. The life review from her relationships with her parents and her childhood sweetheart Noah was an important piece of this story. We meet the father of her son in the present day and she reflects on how he and Vivienne came to meet and to create Ivan.
I found this a very different and interesting book. I believe fans of general fiction as well as fantasy will enjoy this story.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Vry enjoyable read, making me question where would I choose. Good story

A wonderful and heart warming story told through the perspective of dying woman, VIvienne Marshall. Her spirit travels into the after life shopping for her heaven while her body lies broken in the hospital. As she tries to decide what eternity to choose her life story unfolds. The struggles of life are universal and there are struggles in death; saying good bye and letting go.

I was quickly drawn into this book. I could identify with Vivennve as a mother and can't imagine how difficult it must be to leave a child behind. There were moments that my eyes welled with tears and she decribed the little things about her son, Ivan. How he smiles, how he smells, his inquisitive questions.

I loved the style in which the author flashed back to childhood to show how relationships started and then changed over time. Some of the chapters were told in the present through the eyes of those watching and praying for Vivenne to recover. I especially liked that chapters that were Ivan's; his life after his mom and how he never let go of her memory or her love for him.

Extraordinary concept.

The synopsis is one of those that covers everything you need to know about the book to decide if you want to read it.

All I can add to it is that I really enjoyed some of the supporting cast of characters and the little intrigues they added to the story.

Additionally, it reminds me of the Albert Brooks & Meryl Streep movie, Defending Your Life. In trying to choose what her heaven will be, she goes through self examination similar to that in the movie.

Recommended for those who like thinking what a well lived life entails. Did they make good decisions? Who do they want to see in the afterlife? What is most important to them when all is said and done?

Thank you to the publisher for the free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

' The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall' tells the initially straightforward tale of a woman dying in an ICU bed after a traffic accident. However, it soon becomes apparent that this is a novel which will gradually bring together a fragmented narrative of Vivienne's past, present and future.

Kirk intrigues the reader with increasing dreamlike and emotionally-charged episodes. This is no fast-paced rollercoaster thriller, but I found it for be written with a great deal of emotional intelligence, making me fee attached to the characters and concerned about their fates.

I enjoyed this novel and found it to be thought-provoking and refreshingly quiet in its approach.

Vivienne Marshall, 35, wearing her red birthday shoes, is being moved along in her steps by the pace of the crowd around her is texting when her world changes. I’d say “stops” but it continues on, just not in the way she’d probably envisioned earlier that day, or even that moment.

Vivienne finds herself transported to a lovely park, with a perfect sky, the perfect bridge just wide enough for a couple to wander through the twisting tree limbs everywhere.

“Crooked, bent, long, short, stilted, stretched, high and low, everywhere knobby limbs. And they’re old, like an elephant’s trunk with matching elephant knees and their bands and wrinkles earned by years of wisdom.”

And then she sees her first love at the other end of the bridge, whole and perfect and unexpected, after too many years. Noah. Noah is her guide, who is there to share with her the possibilities before her. Her options. The choices she has in creating her Heaven.

Pause. So here I was, just pages into this book, holding my breath because this is beginning to sound like it could go in two directions. It could be super-cheesy, schmaltzy, Hallmark-greeting-card-meets-Lifetime-Drama… or maybe not. It has its moments of bordering on being “too sweet”, but then again, it doesn’t dwell there.

But, reality isn’t finite, so suspend disbelief for long enough to read on. Given a limited time and a choice, if you could create your own heaven, what would it include? Vivienne is allowed to visit some of the Heavens of some of the more important people in her life before she can decide what her own should include.

I loved a few of the characters in this book, but Marty was by far my favorite. The stories he shares with Vivienne have her wrapped up in his charm.

“Sometimes a mere wink in my direction or a simple shimmer of light in a stranger’s eyes topples my swiss-cheese walls. I have a weakness for kindness and an addiction to storytellers.”

My first impression of this book was that it seemed like it should / would / could be a YA novel, although it is not classified as such. The writing reminded me very much of Joshilyn Jackson’s books that I’ve read, charming. Minus maybe two brief scenes, there’s not a lot of S-E-X in this book. What there is, it’s really pretty tame.

Worthy of note is the fact that this novel, was a finalist in the William Faulkner William Wisdom writing competition when it was still a novel-in-progress titled: “Heavens.”

Publication Date: 06 September 2016

Many thanks to Reputation Books, NetGalley, and to the author, Shannon Kirk

Be careful…when you are texting. Your inattention could be the death of you.

Vivienne lay hovering on the brink of death, one foot in the land of the living and one foot with the dead.

Noah, her dead, dream husband explains it to her. The scene made me think of a Supernatural episode, where Castielle says our Heaven is of our own making.

Is there a Heaven? Does our life pass before our eyes?

What would it look like? Who would you want there with you?

What secrets would be brought to light after your death?

And if there is a Heaven…what about Hell?

The lovely pics sprinkled throughout are a nice touch and I love it.

I am sitting in one of my favorite reading places, my patio and watering the lawn, even as the black clouds roll in, the thunder rumbling, and I am lost in Vivienne’s world, unable to quit reading.

Shannon’s descriptive words draw me into this novel from the opening pages, her poetic words bring to life fantasy worlds full of vibrant colors, beauty and love, but the flowery prose becomes onerous for me, having me starting, stopping and rereading, but that is me. I think there are many readers who will LOVE it and get lost in the story too.

This Heavenly love story is tragic, yet hopeful and very thought provoking.

I voluntarily reviewed a free ARC copy of The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall from Shannon Kirk.