Customer Reviews

New Life Incognita

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kelly Butler--psychic, wiccan, sometimes drug dealer and always homeboy--is murdered and sent back to earth for a second chance at life. To his shock and dismay, his second chance is granted in the body of a beautiful white chic. To make matters even worse, said white chic (Dagny) is married to the "enemy"--a Latin narc cop (Tyler Diaz) whose teenaged brother has died from a drug overdose several years previous. Needless to say, Tyler has a mean score to settle and is on a mission, neither of which includes repairing the marital rift that exists between himself and his unfaithful, recreational-drug-using wife. Add to the mix Dagny's affair with an unstable dude who doesn't know how to take no for answer, and an incorrigible hot-looking sistah-gal friend--both of whom are on Tyler's all-time hit list--and Kelly has more than enough to keep his hands full reconciling his marriage to another man and cleaning up the emotional mess Dagny left behind when she keeled over dead from a brain hemorrhage.

The sex-switch premise was an interesting twist to this universal, love-conquers-all themed romance, one that kept this male reader turning pages to see if the author could pull it off. To my surprise and satisfaction, and without giving anything away, the author does pull it off, convincingly bringing Tyler and Kelly/Dagny together with great sensual flare and urban flavor.

I'm not normally a romance reader and only read this book on the strength of a trusted (female) friend's recommendation. I'm glad I kept an open mind or I would have missed out on a well-written and exciting read.

Or make that one witch, one estranged and disenchanted narc husbandand a partridge in a pear treeee!

Seriously though, thisparanormal romance had a little bit of something foreveryone--reincarnation, psychics, wiccans, mystery, suspense and a relationship story between soul mates at the center of it all.

Kelly is the "homeboy from the hood", born the seventh son of a seventh son. When his arrogance and disregard for his natural psychic gifts and wiccan beliefs result in his murder, he is thrust into a new life, and the body of a young white woman married to a good-lucking narcotics detective with a mean score to settle. Unfortunately, the score Tyler--said narc--wants to settle is with drug dealers and their kin, specifically, his happy-go-lucky, drug-using wife, Dagny.

Kelly's got his hands full trying to reconcile himself to his new lot as the cheating wife of a dedicated man whose younger brother died of an O.D., and Edge, Dagny's affair who can't take no for an answer, makes Kelly's job that much more difficult.

The one element that makes Kelly's job easier, is the one element of his new existence he's resisting the greatest: his relationship with another man. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how he looks at it, he and Dagny's husband have great chemistry--inside and outside the bedroom. Suffice to say, I spent more than half of the book on pins-and-needles wondering would they or wouldn't they, when and HOW! ( )

I enjoyed this book very much and would definitely try more of Ms. McKeever's work. She displays a talent for creating multi-faceted characters, the driving force behind a well-written, fast-paced and sensual love story. END

Kelly Butler falls to seemingly random gunfire, finding himself outside his body watching the woman he loves grieving his death. To his dismay, however, rather than staying in Summerland, the Wiccan equivalent to heaven, Kelly is thrust not only back into life, but into a new body. Rather than the young familiar black body he previous inhabited, Kelly is now white, blond, female and married.

Kelly, now known as Dagny, has great difficulty reorienting to this new existence. His six-foot-two, one ninety pound male mind doesn't immediately recognize the newer, petite, female existence. As he acclimates to the change of physique, however, he must also adjust to the overwhelming emotional changes, including learning to cope with the mental and physical aspects of Dagny's marriage. Further, Kelly finds himself also coping with the extreme dangers created by Dagny's previous liaisons.

NEW LIFE INCOGNITA provides refreshing entertainment while exploring paths different from the mainstream, including such topics as Wicca, reincarnation, and astral projection. For those familiar with or open minded and willing to explore the unfamiliar, NEW LIFE INCOGNITA is an extraordinary, imaginative view of the paranormal complete with a fantastic love story that transcends normal definitions. With verve and finesse, Gracie McKeever proves that the suspension of disbelief results in magic. Very highly recommended.

Truthfully, I cannot say I've been an avid reader of paranormal or related novels/stories. However, Gracie McKeever's story gripped me from page one and in one weekend I devoured it. I fell in quickly with McKeever's style which is flawless and masterful. She managed to snare a skeptic like myself and had me biting my nails and turning pages to hungrily absorb the fine imagery and surrealism of this captivating and down to earth novel. Kelly, Dagny, Tyler, Jordan and Edge (to name a few) all became my babies, near and dear to my heart. Curled in the corner of my sofa, I cried and laughed with them and fell in love too. The ending was suspenseful and rewarding, I closed the book feeling extremely satisfied, but sorry it was over. I wanted to follow my babies through even more. If you haven't read it yet, PICK IT UP!!! I guarantee a fast and satisfying read in one sitting. Keep a close watch for Gracie, she's definitely up and coming. I have had the pleasure of sneaking a peek at her most recent not yet released "FLAMES PAST" and now I'm hooked in the paranormal genre for life! You GO girl!!!

I've read lots of gender-switch books, since Thorne Smith's classic Turnabout, but this one was unique in that the hero/heroine not only switched gender but race and socioeconomic background. I found it very interesting that the things you'd expect to cause trouble for the character were not the ones that did. I also liked that the heroine's past actions caused problems for the hero now inhabiting her body. Too often, characters seem to exist in a vacuum, with no past prior to the story and no future when the story ends. The secondary characters were treats, and all realistically drawn. The conflict of the hero/heroine as he tried to sort out his girlfriend's new relationship with his avowed enemy and his own relationship with his estranged husband were excellent. (Although the limitation of English pronouns, as you can see, makes things a bit confusing) And the subplot involving Wicca was engrossing, and obviously well researched. The only problems that I had with the story were needing to look up a few words in the dictionary that weren't obvious from context, a slight concern about the extent of one evil character's violence against the hero/heroine, and a wish for more active participation of the hero/heroine in the final resolution. But none of those were serious enough to mar my enjoyment of this book. It's an unusual book, well worth the read.