Thanks again to Abhilasha for this excellent guest review! You can also check out her other guest review of As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust.
I enjoy reading romantic thrillers every once in a while, specifically those with equal parts thrill within the romance. The blurb and the cover of The Alchemist of Aleppo sold me into it. I hoped the thriller chased every turn of romance like dust chasing a comet, blazing hot and bright.
Summary
We were young. You were dying. And I was desperate. So, I rearranged the world.
Michael Samman, from the lineage of the famous glass workers of Aleppo, is surrounded by darkness, visions and an unusual attraction to a glass goblet in the V&A Museum of London. Here comes Kat Musgrave, attracted to the glass goblet she has only seen in her visions and the man within them. The attraction is instant and its scary.
It is a connection deeper than memories and older than centuries. None of them understand what it means. Through a series of events uncovering family histories, a British art historian and an American geneticist unravel what art cannot express and science cannot explain. They find the maker of the goblet, a man who infused his and his dying wife’s soul into the goblet to find her in the next life. However, destiny had other plans. Not only do they not meet easily, every reunion is fraught with enemies set on revenge. After all, not everyone was happy with the rearrangement.
The enemy wants something from the pair, something they cannot recall, something in their first lives. Soon they realise that the Alchemist of Aleppo did not just make one artifact but many, rearranging multiple fates- a blessing for some, a curse for many. Will Michael and Kat be able to find a resolution before the revenge gets to them? Will they be able to face their darkness to find the answers? When past and present collide, who will they choose to be?
My review
Upon first reading the book, it was a sweet and sour experience. The blurb had given enough away for me to grasp the beginning of the story. I was impatient. An impatient reader is a worse critic. What held me together through the first quarter of the story was the language and the sensory exploration of the characters. The sprinkles of thriller and a hint of fantastical element held me together. It also raised questions.
What happens when a man refuses to submit to fate? What happens when the occult of one man becomes his addiction? Will the darkness shadowing his reincarnations get him this time as well? When Kat and Michael meet, it is magic. It is an unknown power that pulls them together. Their first meeting, the intuitive actions and intimate thoughts, was a savory and seductive experience. That first meeting is everything it builds up to be.
The plot, the setting, the characters and their reincarnations raised the bar higher. Every moment I held on with patience was worth it, rewarded even. But let me warn you here, the first meeting does not arrive easily. The author first builds characters, then delves into romance. This also sets a mood for the story that suits the thriller’s purpose.
Here, I must express, I am not a big fan of spicy scenes in any book until they serve a plot purpose and I am so glad here it only went to an extent where it served the plot. The intimacy scenes come from disjointed, centuries old, past versions of the characters. The closeness that flows through Kat and Michael is beautifully explained by the relationship development in their previous reincarnations. In other words, do they jump into bed? Um… maybe? Did their past reincarnations? Definitely! Wild old times! The tension? Chef’s kiss.
Just when I was sitting with high expectations for peak romance, scattered clues about their past and uncomfortable feeling towards a hovering side character takes centre stage. When the romance was expected, Ms. Savage opened a whole box of thriller twists in the middle of the story, taking my favourite mysterious and engaging characters through a roller coaster.
When the romance was expected, Ms. Savage opened a whole box of thriller twists in the middle of the story, taking my favourite mysterious and engaging characters through a roller coaster.
You would think it was a showdown halfway through the story. But no, the side character steps in and rises to the challenge. It was one of those books where the side character was as memorable as the main character. Sergei, I see you and I will remember you. In fact, I will remember them all. Micah with his darkness and unresolved feelings, Elias with trauma, and Michael, who brings them full circle. I will remember Yasmine off the page and my favourite Emmaline, who is more than a lookalike of Kat, the protagonist.
The writing style is neither too simple nor too complex. The Alchemist of Aleppo is well written with a precise tension that roped me into the web of grey morals, questionable actions and fateful reunions. There is a saying that “all meetings are reunions due”. Kat and Michael’s first meeting fit into this description. It becomes an intimately shared yet unspoken secret between strangers. Visions are jogged and the pair sticks together, half out of attraction and half out of need to find answers to their past. What unravels is a morally ambiguous past, tangled so far beyond anyone’s control that it leaves all characters in swallowed frustration and me, as a reader, with a confused and aching heart.
As the time to face the vision and unlock the lost memories came close, my expectations ran high. The secret Michael and Kat wanted to keep to themselves kept getting exposed to more and more people. The Alchemist of Aleppo’s present reincarnation was restlessly running on no fuel, and the reincarnations of his wife fell into the background of the active action.
The showdown made more sense for the story’s arc and the character’s development, but fell slightly short on my expectations. The confrontation was controlled, the dark sides of them both exposed bare made for an exciting read. However, it would have been better if they were used actively, wielded like the low fantasy elements promised throughout the story. To me, the ending felt mellow.
The plot of the story, full of romance and a thrilling rush, fits around my expectations like a glove. The low fantasy element promised through the existence of the goblet and its supporting artifacts only served as a string to tie the fates of various couples together.
In terms of character, Michael and Kat had personal and romantic developments, and Elias and Emmaline’s story also had an ending. And as shuddering and heart wrenching that little closure of their love story was, it was a closure. I also wished to see Micah’s personal demons and regrets find some solace through Michael, instead of leaving them as undecided as Micah’s whole character. Even the side character of Sergei has a better arc.
Apart from characters, the story’s research subjects shine brighter than its themes. Topics of reincarnation, memory inheritance, gene development are often pulled into conversations. On the humane side, the story is about family, relationships, meetings, coincidences and reunions. And one statement combines both sides -magic and science are the same thing.
The Alchemist of Aleppo is a romantic thriller with elements of science-fiction or fantasy elements, whichever you want to call it, woven into the story’s tertiary plot. If you love thrillers with a romantic backdrop, or reincarnated lovers, trope this book is for you. And if Marie K.Savage has more romantic thrillers brewing, I am here for it.
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Meet Abhilasha
A hobbit in the body of a gypsy. I travel too much, never putting down physical roots in one place for more than a couple years at a time; books are my ground zero, my home away from home. I always read online- library apps, e-books, kindle but I also own multiple copies of P&P and at least one always travels with me. I am the kind of reader that goes by TBR and doesn’t know big slumps. What is a slump but a need to re-read favorites!
