Book recommendation: Until the Next Time by Kevin Fox

(Note: An updated version of this recommendation is available here.)

I’ll admit, it’s been a little while since I read Until the Next Time (I reviewed it on Goodreads back in July). But I stand by my four-star rating of it, and so I wanted to talk about it here.

Until the Next Time crosses a number of genre lines. It’s both historical and modern fiction, it has paranormal elements, and it gives the reader a better understanding of Irish culture and history. Often, covering so many genres can make a novel a bit hard to follow or truly fall into.

That wasn’t the case with this novel.

I liked the way the novel between Sean and Michael’s points of view. It gave the reader a better understanding of what happened both in the novel’s present and its past – which I thought was very important for a novel covering a topic such as this.

And that topic is what made me love the novel. I haven’t read many novels that look at the idea covered in this novel. I don’t want to say here what that idea is, as it would give away too many spoilers. But, please trust me when I say the idea alone makes this novel worth reading.

My other favourite aspect of the novel? Oddly enough, it was the ending. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it’s been a while since I read this novel. But I can still clearly remember the ending. It’s wonderfully bittersweet, and it leaves the door open for a sequel. I don’t know if Kevin Fox is working on a sequel, but I’m going to keep my eyes out for it in case he does.

Goodreads summary

For Sean Corrigan the past is simply what happened yesterday, until his twenty-first birthday, when he is given a journal left him by his father s brother Michael a man he had not known existed. The journal, kept after his uncle fled from New York City to Ireland to escape prosecution for a murder he did not commit, draws Sean into a hunt for the truth about Michael s fate.

Sean too leaves New York for Ireland, where he is caught up in the lives of people who not only know all about Michael Corrigan but have a score to settle. As his connection to his uncle grows stronger, he realizes that within the tattered journal he carries lies the story of his “own” life his past as well as his future and the key to finding the one woman he is fated to love forever.

With the appeal of “The Time Traveler s Wife” and the classic “Time and Again,” this novel is a romance cloaked in mystery and suspense that takes readers inside the rich heritage of Irish history and faith. “Until the Next Time” is a remarkable story about time and memory and the way ancient myths affect everything from what we believe to who we love.