My list of the best Reincarnation Novels I’ve Read.
There are many fiction novels with Reincarnation as a theme, and as with most genres, there are good stories, which are well set out with original plots, and then there are the ones that are not so good, with rehashed plots and little variation on the reincarnation novels which came before them. I’ve made a list of the best Reincarnation novels that I’ve discovered during my searches, among which I include my own offerings “The Returning” and “Murdering Point”. The “also ran” Reincarnation Novels actually inspired me to write my own.
One of the reasons that I wrote my novels, along with my love of writing and my interest in the genre, was that I’ve found it increasingly difficult to find good Reincarnation Novels. Ever since reading “The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud” by Max Ehrlich when I was a young adult, and then seeing the movie, I have been fascinated by the genre and I’ve sought out reincarnation novels from many authors.
The reincarnation novels in the list are all linked to their online purchase page.
The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud by Max Ehrlich:
Dr. Peter Proud’s ordinary life as a professor in California is threatened by recurrent dreams that all end the same: with his murder in a lake at night by a mysterious woman named Marcia. These dreams—which he comes to believe may be flashbacks from a previous life—become so disturbing that he seeks answers from a sleep researcher, a clairvoyant, and an expert in psychic phenomena in order to recover his past. But he soon discovers a new dimension to his dilemma while watching a television show called “America, Past and Present”—and realizes the show is set in the town in his dreams. He travels to Springfield, Massachusetts, and comes face to face with the woman from his nightmares. The woman, Marcia Curtis, is shocked to see in Peter personality traits and characteristics that precisely recall those of her dead husband, Jeff, including his voice. Peter meets and falls in love with Marcia’s daughter, Ann, just as Marcia realizes that he is a reincarnation of Jeff. Will a second tragedy occur just as Peter is about to unravel the mystery behind his dreams?
The Star Rover By Jack London:
Jack London was born into abject poverty in the slums of San Francisco during the winter of 1876. His writing was to reflect the hard life he lived, perpetually chronicling men facing the wild as he did throughout his life. After his eighth grade year, poverty forced London to leave school. This did not stop him, as he furthered his literary knowledge and skill at the Oakland Public Library, borrowing books and educating himself. London faced great obstacles, even landing himself in a Niagara Falls prison as a vagrant just shortly after winning a prize from a newspaper for his piece on a Typhoon near Japan. Once he was released, London decided to go back to high school, finishing his education in just a year and got into the University of California. He left after only one semester and began his prolific writing career. “The Star Rover”, also published as “The Jacket” tells a tale of torture at San Quentin State Prison, where a man is left no choice but to resort to mental tactics to endure physical pain.
My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares:
Daniel tells me that he’s always loved me. That I feel the same. That I always have. Not just in this life, but in my last life, and all my lives before. But I don’t remember him. He says he is always searching for me. Always hoping that one day I will remember. But it is only he that carries the memory of our love. I know that finding true love is never easy. Perhaps you have fought for it. Perhaps, like Daniel, you have endured the pain of it being unrequited. But I hope your quest ends happily. I hope you never have to face the heartbreak that inevitably awaits us. This is our extraordinary, unforgettable story.
Haunted by his inability to stop the murder of a beautiful young painter twenty years ago, Lucian Glass keeps his demons at bay through his fascinating work with the FBI’s Art Crime Team. Investigating a crazed collector who’s begun destroying prized masterworks, Glass is thrust into a bizarre hostage negotiation that takes him undercover at the Phoenix Foundation dedicated to the science of past-life study. There, to maintain his cover, he submits to the treatment of a hypnotist.
Under hypnosis, Glass travels from ancient Greece to nineteenth-century Persia, while the case takes him from New York to Paris and the movie while the case takes him from New York to Paris and the movie capital of the world. These journeys will change his very understanding of reality, lead him to question his own sanity and land him at the centre of perhaps the most audacious art heist in history: a fifteen-hundred-year-old sculpture the nation of Iran will do anything to recover.
Granite and Gravity by Vivian Elani
Aria was honored when the Council of Souls requested that she orchestrate her soul group’s next life—this one in Manhattan during the late 1800s. However, she quickly realized the group was disjointed, and the souls lagged behind in their growth. Each soul had difficulties that followed it from one lifetime to the next. Aria was the most advanced in her group but a novice at crafting lives. When Vesta made an incorrect choice during her life, jeopardizing the entire soul group’s success, Aria had to acquire approval from the Council of Souls for an intervention. The group didn’t know they were on Earth for a specific purpose. Instead, they struggled with their own insecurities and character flaws and blamed others instead of looking within for answers about the meaning and purpose of their lives. The building of the East River (Brooklyn) Bridge is chronicled throughout the book. Granite and Gravity is told from two perspectives: those living on Earth as well as their respective souls who review their lives upon return to the Soul World.
The Returning by Russell J. Perry:
We hear of things in this world which are hard to explain and we find difficult to believe … Until they happen to us….
Jacob Shaunessy has vivid dreams of romantic interludes with a beautiful young woman. They are deeply in love and seem to have a wonderful life together. The dreams are like memories, but the memories belong to another man, from another time.
He knows instinctively, that the exotic locations of the dreams are in the tropics of Northern Australia; although he has never been to that part of the world. The persistent night visitations draw him north where he is enveloped in a dark mystery, which reaches back almost 80 years and is steeped in revenge and violent death, as past souls do battle in an attempt to resolve a deadly vendetta.
Return to Murdering Point by Russell J. Perry:
Set in the North Queensland tropics once again, “Return to Murdering Point” picks up some 15 years after the horrors faced by Jacob Shaunessy and his family in 1997. From the Atherton Tablelands to the small seaside village of Kurrimine Beach, the family once again must face a malevolent soul, seeking revenge.
When Gavin and Bridie Cloak adopted baby Lucas into their family, they weren’t to know about the dark passenger who traveled with him.
Reincarnation is meant to be a chance for redemption and a new beginning, and for the Wilson twins, it was just that. … However for John Spait, it was another chance to revive a deadly vendetta.
Jane Was Here by Sarah Kernochan:
A mysterious young woman calling herself Jane turns up in a small New England town. She claims a fragmentary memory of growing up in this place, yet she has never been here before in her life. Upon her arrival, strange and alarming things begin happening to some of the town’s inhabitants. As Jane’s memories reawaken piece by piece, they carry her back in time to a long-buried secret, while the townspeople hurtle forward to a horrific event when past and present fatally collide.
Yesterday by Samyann: 
A tender love story pulls the reader back to previous lives and a time richly elegant. In modern day Chicago, deja vu draws together a handsome mounted policeman and the beautiful young woman who saves his life. Yesterday is also a harrowing tale of escape through the American Civil War, the heart wrenching love of slaves for their young white charges, and The Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In this historical romance, Mark fights through Amanda’s rejection to prove that she will love again as she once loved – Yesterday.
In 1552 Celia de Bohun falls hopelssly in love with Stephen, the resident priest in the Catholic household of Sir Anthony Browne. Against his will, Stephen returns her love, and the pair become the victims of their savage times. Centuries later, their tragedy threatens the life and happiness of another Celia, the young, rich and unhappy wife of Richard Marsden and lady of the Sussex manor called Medfield Place. She can only be saved by piercing the green darkness of the past and revealing its mysterious truth.
If you believe there are Reincarnation Novels which should be added to this list Please contact me and let me know.
If you are a writer of Reincarnation Novels, if you send me a Kindle version (Mobi), I’ll be happy to review it and add it to the list, (If it passes muster). russell@russellperry.com.au