Laura Steven’s “Our Infinite Fates” offers a dazzling take on immortality that feels both achingly timeless and remarkably fresh. This isn’t just another reincarnation romance—it’s a heart-wrenching exploration of what it means to love someone across a thousand lifetimes while being locked in a cruel cycle of murder and rebirth.
At its core, the novel follows Evelyn, who remembers all her past lives—and the fact that in each one, she’s been killed before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a soul whose existence is mystically tethered to hers. In her current life as Branwen Blythe, Evelyn has a particular reason to survive: her younger sister Gracie needs her bone marrow to beat leukemia. When Evelyn discovers that Dylan, the charming farmhand who’s worked for her family for years, is actually Arden, the hunt begins—both to understand the ancient curse binding them and to find a way to save her sister before time runs out.
Steven’s tale unfolds across multiple timelines—from a Viking wedding to the Western Front of World War I, from the frozen wastes of Siberia to the salt-licked shores of Nauru—painting an intricate tapestry of their shared history. Each glimpse into their past lives adds layers to their relationship, creating a romance that spans not just distance but eons.
Strengths: A Love Story for the Ages
Exquisite World-Building Across History
One of the novel’s greatest strengths is Steven’s ability to craft vivid historical settings that feel genuinely lived-in rather than merely researched. Whether it’s the sour tang of trench warfare in France, the heat-rippled streets of El Salvador, or the bone-deep chill of Siberian permafrost, each setting crackles with sensory detail:
“We lived in one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, colder even than Mars. Every gulp of pristine air was liquid silver in the lungs.”
Steven has a remarkable talent for capturing the essence of each historical period without bogging down in exposition. Each past life feels distinct yet connected, creating a sense of temporal whiplash that perfectly mirrors Evelyn’s experience of multiple lifetimes.
Complex, Evolving Love
The relationship between Evelyn and Arden defies simple categorization, evolving across centuries in ways both beautiful and devastating. They are enemies and lovers, hunters and hunted, and Steven captures this contradiction with nuance and emotional intelligence. Their love isn’t pristine or straightforward—it’s complicated by guilt, duty, sacrifice, and secrets.
What makes their romance so compelling is how it changes form across lives: in one, they’re childhood friends in a desert caravan; in another, they’re soldiers in opposing trenches. Their bodies and genders shift with each rebirth, but their essential connection remains, challenging conventional notions of sexuality and identity. Steven skillfully portrays love as something that transcends physical form while still being grounded in the specific contexts of each life.
The Haunting Final Act
Without spoiling the revelations, the novel’s final third delivers a series of gut-punches that recontextualize everything that came before. The ultimate explanation for their curse is both narratively satisfying and thematically rich, offering a poignant meditation on the nature of sacrifice and redemption.
The climactic confrontation in the Underrealm is masterfully executed—tense, horrifying, and ultimately hopeful in a way that feels earned rather than artificially imposed. Steven doesn’t shy away from the cosmic horror elements of her premise, creating a bone-white wasteland that feels genuinely otherworldly.
Room for Improvement: Where the Immortal Romance Stumbles
Pacing Challenges
While the multi-timeline structure generally works well, the novel occasionally struggles with pacing. The first half spends perhaps too much time establishing Evelyn’s current life situation before the central mystery kicks into high gear. Some readers might grow impatient waiting for the crucial revelations that don’t arrive until well past the midpoint.
Additionally, certain past lives are given more attention than others, creating an uneven rhythm. The Siberian sequence, while beautifully written, goes on rather long compared to other equally interesting periods that receive only a few pages.
Convenient Plot Mechanics
At times, the mechanics of the curse feel too conveniently aligned with narrative necessity. The rule that they must die before turning eighteen creates urgency but occasionally strains credulity—especially when examining how two people manage to find each other in life after life despite being born in random locations. The tether that draws them together sometimes feels like a plot shortcut rather than an organic element of the mythology.
Similarly, Evelyn’s selective memory—remembering recent lives clearly but having only fragments of earlier ones—sometimes comes across as a narrative device to withhold crucial information rather than a natural consequence of immortality.
Secondary Character Development
While Evelyn and Arden are richly developed, some of the supporting cast in the present-day timeline feel underdeveloped by comparison. Gracie has moments of genuine complexity (her biting humor masking deep vulnerability), but Evelyn’s mother remains somewhat generic despite her importance to the emotional stakes. The mysterious Ceri enters and exits the narrative without leaving much impression, functioning more as a plot device than a fully realized character.
Thematic Richness: Beyond the Romance
Despite these issues, the thematic ambitions elevate “Our Infinite Fates” above typical paranormal romance fare. Steven explores profound questions about:
The Nature of Identity
- How much of who we are persists across different bodies and contexts?
- Can we retain our essential selves when our memories are fragmented?
The Ethics of Sacrifice
- Is saving one life worth binding another to eternal suffering?
- What makes a bargain fair when the stakes are so cosmically high?
The Paradox of Memory
- Is remembering past traumas a burden or a source of wisdom?
- Can forgetting be a form of mercy rather than loss?
The novel’s exploration of Evelyn’s status as both victim and perpetrator is particularly nuanced. Her gradual realization of her own complicity in creating the curse adds layers of moral complexity rarely seen in similar works.
Stylistic Flourishes: Poetry in Prose
Steven’s prose style deserves special mention. She writes with a poetic intensity that’s perfectly suited to her epic subject matter, occasionally incorporating actual poetry attributed to Arden (from the mysterious book “Ten Hundred Years of You” that serves as a plot device). These snippets enhance the novel’s emotional impact:
“life gives us grief like mounds of wet clay,
ripe and heavy beneath our reluctant hands,
and with it we can do one of three things…”
Her writing balances evocative imagery with emotional directness, creating passages of striking beauty without becoming precious or overwrought. This is particularly evident in how she handles the novel’s more intimate moments, which are both sensual and deeply emotional.
Comparisons and Context
Fans of V.E. Schwab’s “The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” will find similar themes of immortality and memory in Our Infinite Fates, though Steven’s approach is more romance-focused. The queer elements recall the fluid identities in Aiden Thomas’s work, while the historical hopping has echoes of Matt Haig’s “How to Stop Time,” albeit with a darker edge.
For readers of Steven’s previous young adult works like “The Love Hypothesis,” this represents a significant departure and maturation. The novel maintains her characteristic wit but applies it to weightier themes and more complex characters.
Final Verdict: A Memorable Journey Through Time
“Our Infinite Fates” isn’t flawless, but its ambition and emotional resonance easily outweigh its shortcomings. Steven has crafted a love story that feels genuinely epic in scope while remaining deeply human in its concerns. The central question—whether love can survive not just death but endless cycles of death—offers no easy answers, but the journey toward understanding is richly rewarding.
For readers who appreciate fantasy romance with philosophical depth, intricate world-building, and characters who evolve across centuries, this novel offers a captivating experience that lingers long after the final page. Like the lovers at its center, the story may occasionally stumble across time, but its heart beats with an authenticity that transcends its imperfections.
A millennium-spanning romance that’s both epic in scope and intimate in execution, “Our Infinite Fates” confirms Laura Steven as a major voice in fantasy fiction.
