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SOBREcubierta.indd

I’m really glad to review this book because this is the first time I am going to talk about a book that I have already read and that will be translated into English and launch in the US soon: in autumn. The author self-published the book and became so popular in Amazon that it was published in paper a few months later by a publishing house.

The story starts with a disturbing chapter about a man who wake up in a hotel without knowing who or where he is. His father calls him on the phone and little by little he resolves the situation.

In the next chapter we meet Adriana, an archaeologist who is applying for a job in the Archaeological Museum of Cantabria. She gets the job and starts working under the orders of the owners, three brothers about thirty years of age whose knowledge of ancient history is amazing. One day, by chance, Adriana hears a conversation between the siblings and a woman who works in the museum laboratory, Kyra, and she becomes suspicious of their activities.

bisontes altamira

Paintings of bisons in Altamira Cave (Cantabria)

Everything is so strange because these people are not common – they are supernaturally old. Héctor, the eldest brother, is actually the father of the rest and has more than ten thousand years. He was born just there, in Cantabria, and most of the pieces shown in the museum were buried by him when he was “younger”, so he knew exactly what he was going to find when deciding to work as an archaeologist. Iago is his eldest son and is five thousand years old. He pretends to be the friendliest of them, but actually he is afraid of making new friends or having a new family because he knows that sooner or later they will have to go to another place and start a new life again for people not to be suspicious about their everlasting young appearance. Jairo and Kyra, five thousand and two thousand years old respectively, are taking advantage of the technology that this century has developed to research their longevity.

One of the things I loved about the book was that the author shows this strange peculiarity as the opposite illness of Progeria and tries to explain it in genetic terms. I mean, there are not immortal vampires involved! The research on the longevity is very interesting and thrilling because some of the characters don’t want to know more about their genes while the others are keen on finding out what they can do to have a supernaturally old family at last.

Turning to Adriana, she falls in love with Iago, even though she tries hard not to mix sentimental issues with work. She knows he has a secret and she enquires about it, but finally she can’t believe what he says he is. Thanks to the supernaturally old characters, we will know a little about prehistoric life, their traditions and culture, and what they have been doing all this time on earth; not everything, of course, but the main events in their lives.

This is a book that has a little of lots of genres; it is a thriller, it is a romance, it is a crime novel, and we learn also about science. It is the kind of book you can’t stop reading and I think everybody will enjoy it as we have done in Spain. Hope you like it!

rakin5

My Spanish review here.