Melissa’s Review: The Lightbearers by Nora M. Garcia

The Lightbearers
written by Nora M. Garcia
published by 1st Books, 2012

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: You know how sometimes you order a Chocolate Cookie Fudge Fantasy Delight expecting the best dessert of your life and then the waiter drops a bowl of melty ice cream topped with stale cookie crumbs in front of you? Yeah. This book is kind of like that.

The Lightbearers isn’t as awesome as it seems like it’s going to be. For starters, you’d think the story about an ancient Egyptian couple would be narrated by a member of the couple (or at least told from one of their points of view). It isn’t. You’d think, given the topic, that there ought to be at least some mention of ancient Egypt in the first several chapters. There isn’t. You’d think the author would have noticed she misspelled the protagonist’s name in the first sentence of her blurb. Ahem. Add to that some preachy-yet-bland writing and you’ve got the idea: The Lightbearers looks good on the menu, but it’ll make your belly hurt.

GOLDEN LINE

“Your heroism bores me.”

Would I recommend it: No, I don’t think so.

About the book – from Goodreads: THE LIGHTBEARERS is the story of an ancient Egyptian King and Queen, Akhenaton and Nefertiti, who have been reincarnating together for the past 3300 years. They have been entrusted with the mission of The Lightbearers, whose responsibility is to be guardians of the human race and to enlighten any whose path they cross. Through reincarnation, during each of their lifetimes, they strive to overcome violence, greed and injustice and in each lifetime they leave pockets of individuals with whom they have shared their secrets of life and death. They have also been ascribed with the powers of telepathy, astral projection and psycho kinesis. They are highly evolved and highly enlightened.

Discovery of their innate mystical powers is facilitated by the assistance of an alien being who introduces them to the mission of the Lightbearer. Through a series of flashbacks two of their previous lifetimes are revealed beginning in Ancient Egypt and including 17th century France where they switched genders.

The story unfolds in the 21st century where Jean Crystal, Nefertiti’s incarnate, has been kidnapped by Dr. Natas, whose plan for world domination has been temporarily disrupted by Jean and her husband George, Akhenaten’s incarnate. Jean and George have discovered a secret about Dr. Natas experimental school, a school completely computerized and robotized.

Jean is held captive on a laboratory table by a motion sensitive laser directed toward her central nervous system. Not realizing this, upon awakening from a narcotic sleep induced by the doctor, she attempts to move and is suddenly wracked by a mind numbing pain. The more she moves the more pain she receives. By astrally projecting herself she is able to overcome the pain and investigate her circumstances. George has already been assassinated and while awaiting her own demise, George pays Jean a visit in the lab, assuring her of their eternal vow to each other. Jean is very shortly, thereafter, assassinated. Upon the joyful reunion of their spirits on Petite Terre, a tiny island just off the Normandy Province of France, Jean and George plan their return. While it is possible to determine their gender and the time in which they return, they cannot predetermine their identities. They must pick a place, a time and a signal by which they can find and identify each other in their subsequent lifetime. In this particular lifetime, their favorite song was “Imagine” by John Lennon and so on the first Monday of October, 2024 at 12 noon, they decide to meet outside the computer science building on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. She will find him sitting under a tree near the building with a guitar strumming “Imagine”.

Their reunion takes place 20 years later, albeit not without a hitch. Together they set out to rescue the United States from Dr. Natas’s well-placed plans, he has already begun to execute.