Susan Carpenter

Susan Carpenter is a consultant neurologist at Princess Diana Memorial Hospital, where Ben is taken after his accident. From an early age, she always wanted to be a doctor, to care for all the sick people in the world and make them better. Her father’s untimely death in a tragic accident affected her deeply and is part of the reason she became so career-oriented, determined to succeed: for him, for the little girl she once was, for all the people she hopes to care for. A beautiful woman, her looks have brought her plenty of attention, but very little happiness. After the latest in a long line of failed relationships, she’s in no hurry to put herself through it all again.

As Susan is awakened to her past, she experiences many previous lives, including the oldest, Shebana, drowned as a human sacrifice thousands of years ago. Some of her other lives are featured below.

Sarah O’Shaughnessy/Wilkes

Sarah is a junior nurse at a field hospital in Flanders, close to the front line. Despite the dreadful conditions, she hangs on to her distinct sense of humour, delivered with a tell-tale Irish lilt. It’s the beginning of a long career in nursing that will take her via a casualty department in Devon to eventually become matron of a paediatric ward in London. Sarah’s life is filled with tragedy, but that sense of humour gives her the strength to carry on. Two world wars bring her two great loves. Or is it one?

Sally Trigg

Sally is sent to work at the Mortimer mansion when she is just eight years old. Content with her place in life, she is happy working for the kindly old lord and his warm-hearted wife. Most of all, she likes Bartie, the lord’s younger son: he’s really sweet. But the lord’s elder son, Marcus, scares her and, as the years go by, she finds herself pulled further into his grasp.

She Wolf

She Wolf is the best in the tribe with a bow: apart from Moon Shadow, of course. Although she has only seventeen summers, she is as fearsome a warrior as any. Never afraid to face an enemy in battle and do what must be done, she fights with honour. But her loyalty to the tribe is tested by the wanton cruelty she cannot abide, and by the white boy she has captured.

Serwaah

Bubbly and mischievous, West African teenager, Serwaah, has her eyes on Baako, the most handsome boy in the village. Close to her family, especially her sister, she loves to tease the shy boy, but always with affection. When he asks her to be his woman, her heart could burst with joy; but news of the white hunters in the area casts a shadow over their lives and Serwaah has to be strong to face the challenges ahead.

Samaira Khurana (Sammie)

Sammie, a British Asian girl, dreams of becoming a doctor. Her teachers think she can do it, so does her brother. But her father says women who pursue professional careers are being disloyal to their families. When she falls in love with an English punk rocker, her father beats her, and forbids her from seeing the boy again. But Sammie is determined nothing will stop them being together.

Ben Carlton

Major Ben Carlton is a decorated veteran with a passion for protecting the innocent. Having served in Afghanistan, he is now running a security business, and feels life has grown rather dull. This isn’t helped by his unhappy marriage, which to all intents and purposes is essentially over: although neither he nor his wife have admitted it to each other yet. What he’d really like to do is set up a college to train people from poor communities how to protect themselves. But, with his wife squandering all the money he makes, he’s had to put that on hold. Everything changes after he has a near-fatal accident in the Scottish Highlands and begins to see visions of previous deaths. Suddenly, a whole new world opens up and he is plunged into an adventure that takes him to places he would never have imagined.

As Ben is awakened to his past, he experiences many previous lives, including the oldest, Bakara, drowned as a human sacrifice thousands of years ago. Some of his other lives are featured below.

Barnaby Robbins

Barnaby knows what he wants: the girl with an infectious smile and a warm personality, who seems to sparkle with life. If she refuses his proposal, he will be heartbroken. But the trainee midwife with a heart of gold says yes, and his life is complete. All that remains is to get permission from the local magistrate. When Barnaby is frustrated by a series of delays, Samantha urges him to be patient. After all, they have the rest of their lives to spend together.

Brendan O’Doyle

Sergeant Brendan O’Doyle was born in Ireland, but his family emigrated to America when he was a little boy. Stationed in Devon in the autumn of 1943, he is taken to the casualty department at the local hospital after crashing his motorbike. Immediately attracted to the sister who attends him, he senses her loneliness. Despite her protests that she is too old for him and, above all, still married to her POW husband, their love blossoms over the months that follow… but time is running out.

Bak-Ra

Bak-Ra knows he has a good life for a slave, far better than most; yet still he feels an aching emptiness inside, something is missing. In his seventeenth year, he finally comes to understand what it is. When Pharaoh’s victory provides an opportunity, Bak-Ra risks everything to steal some time alone with his beloved Su-Chi.

Bryce

Bryce fought with Wallace from the beginning, back when they were just a band of outlaws. He fought with him all through the war, and privately wept when his comrade was captured and executed. Trying to settle down to an ordinary life, on a croft, far to the north, his days with Wallace fill his dreams every night. The only thing to distract him from past glories is his neighbour’s daughter: when her life is threatened, it’s time for Bryce to pick up his sword again. 

Mortimer/Mamboja   

Professor Lord Mortimer is a billionaire scientist, head of a vast global business empire. He shares his birth date with the United States of America and has spent more than two centuries creating first an elixir to extend his lifespan and then a potion to enable him to destroy a person’s soul by ripping it out of their living body and consuming it himself. There is only one threat to his plans to enslave the human race: Shebana and Bakara, the souls he has been stalking for twelve thousand years, since he was Mamboja, the Voice of the Sea, and had them drowned as human sacrifices.

Bound together by love, hate, fear, and destiny, the three of them have become an inseparable Trinity of Souls, meeting time and again through the millennia. Life after life, Mamboja has stopped at nothing to keep Shebana and Bakara apart. Now, in his most powerful incarnation yet, he finally has the means to destroy them forever.

Del Rivera

Francesco Miguel Antonio Del Rivera, a retired history professor from Mexico City, comes to warn Ben his soul is in the gravest peril. Helping the injured man see more of his past, Del Rivera gradually reveals the full extent of his own involvement.  When Ben decides it’s time to forget the past and focus on the present, Del Rivera travels to Dubai alone: with fatal consequences. But being dead doesn’t stop Del Rivera helping Ben and Susan in the most unexpected ways.

Worthington

Professor Worthington, the head of Susan’s department, is a small-minded, petty bureaucrat, who never wastes an opportunity to belittle her in front of the other staff. How he’s risen to become a professor of neurology is a mystery to everyone. A close associate of Mortimer’s, he seems to go back a long way with the lord. But what are the two of them really doing at Princess Diana Memorial?

Al-Mansur

Commander Abdul al-Mansur of Dubai Police Force’s homicide department is a man expert at catching people off guard. Determined to get to the bottom of a mysterious death at the world’s tallest building, he decides to deploy this skill on Ben Carlton. But can he get the answers he is looking for before it’s too late to prevent another murder?