On his 21st birthday, Sean Corrigan’s father gave him Uncle Michael’s journal which was the wish of his uncle . Sean was surprised since he never knew he had an uncle. Michael Corrigan, a NYPD detective, began keeping a journal after fleeing to Ireland to escape persecution for a murder he did not commit. Michael’s father encouraged him to visit relatives who would help Michael to take the rite of passage, the meaning of which is unclear. However, while in Ireland, he was killed by the British while working with the Irish Republican Army. After reading the journal Sean decides to follow his uncle’s journey and travels to Ireland to discover the particulars about his death.

* * * Spoiler Alert! * * *

I purchased this novel because the promotion blurb indicated that it “possessed the appeal of The Time Traveler’s Wife. Enjoying this novel, I thought I would give it a try. Although I knew the “rite of passage” had something to do with this blurb, I did not expect reincarnation. I enjoyed the story and its setting in mid-Ireland, I find the book to be more of an apology for reincarnation. Several characters spent much too much time providing evidence for reincarnation from the Bible, Christianity and other faiths and I found myself skipping through these pages. ( )

I really wanted to love this book and liked the reincarnation idea as I really enjoyed that angle in books like Ferney, by James Long. The Irish setting was interesting and I found I got a bit of an insider's view on Ireland. However, I found that I didn't connect well with the characters and didn't care what happened to them and ended up skimming the final third of the book.

The theories on reincarnation and how organized religion carried hints to the truth of reincarnation was thought provoking, and left me pondering some ideas that will stick with me for a while. On the other hand, I felt like the reincarnation bits began to seem a bit like a long winded lecture and were a little heavy handed.

I think this could have been a much better book if the author would have gone further back in Ireland's history to explain the original source of the "troubles" and made the other parts shorter and less repetitious. ( )

When Sean Corrigan turns 21, his father gives him a journal and monetary inheritance from an uncle he never even knew anything about. The journal is puzzling, as is the true end to Uncle Michael. A trip to Ireland is in the cards, funded by the inheritance. Packed off with gifts for distance cousins, Sean heads across the ocean to Ireland and to the answers he seeks. Fox uses very rich writing to describe both time and historical place in this book. The wars that have waged in Ireland over the years get their due, as do present day animosities. I wholeheartedly bought into Fox's premise, with reincarnation as its' heart. Too much repetition and heavy handed foreshadowing left me wanting this to be a better book. Definitely worth the time spent, but even the ending was somewhat unsatisfying. ( )

This is an Amazon Vine book that took me out of my comfort zone; it required me to fancy myself Irish and just accept what I read. If it hadn't contained such marvelous characters, I don't think I would have suspended disbelief so well but these characters have such depths to them that I'll be thinking about them for a long while.

The story begins when Sean Corrigan, of New York, is given a journal kept by his father's brother Michael. Sean had never known about an Uncle Michael, but apparently his uncle had been a NY cop who ran to Ireland to escape a murder charge. As the story continues, Sean goes to Ireland to solve the mystery of what happened to his uncle there and meet the people who knew his uncle.

Now it gets really intriguing and mysterious. Sean doesn't know what's going on half the time and I could only figure things out in retrospect in some cases. Still I was glued to the pages as I needed to find out. All I could do was settle in for a wild ride, particularly when Anne, the girl who is sent to pick Sean up at the airport, is driving. This girl is one of the most fascinating characters in the book, and her driving is absolutely insane.

The beautifully described settings vary from lonely islands, one of which Sean's family owns, to city streets. The IRA is involved, the Troubles, killing of innocent people in the cause of a free Ireland, guns and money from the U.S., revenge killings, and the British fighting back. You will wonder throughout who is Declan? You will wonder what happens to Kate and Michael and Sean and Anne. And unfortunately if I tell you anymore I'll spoil the story for you.

I'll have to be satisfied with saying that the story is very Irish, and that it is illogically logical. If you have "eyes that see and ears that hear", you will understand. I highly recommend this haunting book. ( )

I enjoyed parts of “Until Next Time” – but at the end of it – wasn’t completely sure what type of book I’d just read. At times it felt like a romance, at times a treatise on religion & spirituality, and much of the time it was a political statement about the violent situation in Northern Ireland.

As the subject danced around, so did the writing style. The book begins in the point of view of a young man named Sean. His voice comes across as belligerent, skeptical and far younger than one might expect. The style is choppy and sometimes seems very juvenile. As the book continues, though, he sometimes has thoughts that seem FAR more mature than he is. This voice is introspective, worldly and very wise – and although the events of the story try to lay the groundwork for that change – it feels off. He starts out the book with a variety of curses and complaints, and sounding like an aimless but angry teenager, but then less than halfway through, (and before any major changes) comes across sounding completely different.

“But even in that moment – even as I thought about telling her how deeply I cared for her – some part of me knew it wouldn’t last. It wasn’t that I regretted what happened, and I knew that I could probably spend years getting to know her, loving every moment. She was beautiful on every level, and I knew she would always challenge me. But it would never be complete. It would never feel as if I couldn’t breathe without her next to me. It would always feel like she were standing in for someone else. Who that was, I didn’t know yet, but I knew she was still out there somewhere, even in those first few moments with Anne.”

This is about a young woman who he just met…1-2 days before?

The one part of the book that will stay with me was the perspective on the Irish – ways of life and loving and fighting. Part Irish myself, I appreciated phrases like; “Smiling women and singing children had perpetual tears in their eyes, as did the angry and defiant young men. The Irish character that I’d seen and never understood my whole life was suddenly on the surface and visible here, tears and laughter so intertwined they were inseparable.”

That is beautifully written, and was more of the book similar to that; I would have enjoyed it more. But this mix of politics, romance, spirituality and violence just didn’t capture me as much as I’d hoped. ( )