A heart-stopping tale of discovery, adventure and intrigue.

A mysterious object found in a dormant volcano will forever change the lives of Adrian and Keira. Together they embark on an extraordinary adventure which takes them from the banks of Lake Turkana in the heart of Africa to the mountains of China.

They seek to reveal the object’s hidden secrets and answer the age-old question: how did life begin?

“The legend goes that when you are in your mother’s womb, you know all about the mystery of creation, the origins of the world until the end of time. When you are born, a messenger flies over your cradle and puts a finger on your lips so that the secret of life will never escape. The finger erases your memory forever and leaves a mark, which all of us have above our upper lip. All of us, except me. The day I was born, the messenger forgot to come and see me, and I remember everything.”

From the top of Ethiopian plateaus to the frozen lakes of the Northern Ural, Marc Levy’s latest novel concludes the breathtaking epic started with The First Day. Love is the ultimate adventure, but it can be dangerous.

The decision to review these two books together came after I thought about how difficult it would be to separate one from the other. I couldn’t. It’s a duology, but I see a need to read one after the other, without stopping, as the right way to do this is at once. This was, definitely, the magic part of this story for me: reading without pause, as if it was a stand-alone novel (works that way!).

Adrian has a strong goal: he wants to discover where the dawn starts. Where the first star began. The answer to the universe. He is in the point where the stars are so near he can almost touch them, but something happens and he ends up withou money, and has to go back gome, to London.

Keira, too, has a strong goal: she wants to discover the first person in the world. How it rised, who it was, when was it. In Ethiopia, searching and researching, she ends up suffering the consequences of a storm and, withou money, needs to go back home, to London.

The destiny ends making their paths cross when Keira and Adrian try to present their thesys in the same University, trying to rase money to making their goals happen. When they meet, they understand that even if they goals are very different, they are moved by the same force, energy, the same need to know. But something can put them in danger: Keira received a pendant from a boy she calls Harry, during her stay in Ethiopia. This pendant can lead them in the direction of some answers that are the ground of their existences, but can also lead them right to the danger, and the traps made by the one that don’t want the past of the humanity revealed.

The First Day, first book in this duology, engage us in a plot full of all mysteries of humanity, placed in a narrative so so good. Splitted between Keira and Adrian’s point of views, the book carries around the world, and make us want answer and knowledge, needing something that fills the emptiness that the characters feel.

The book has romance too, and lots of action. And a cliffhanger that take your breath away in the end: and that’s way you must have The First Night in your side when you finish the first book.

In The First Night, we go beyond in the mysteries of universe, and board in a journey not only full of doubts, questions and the need to know, but also full of feelings, making this one deeper thant the first. It’s a bittersweet joruney, with more heart than action, and a ending a little to fast, full of answers after answers to every question we build before. But it’s still mafic, and give the reader the feeling of an incredible journey.

Every adventure fan should read these books. It has romance, yes, but it’s slowly build and it isn’t on foccus. I see the relationship development of this series more adult, complex and, for me, prettier than the insta-love we’ve been seeing nowadays!

With these books, Marc Levy showed me he is a very good author, with a good hand not just for romances, but capable of leading us through complex plots full of deep scenes during the pages, without losing the narrative! He is right beside my favorite authors now!

Author: Marc Levy
Country: France
Language: French
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, Adventure
Publisher: Laffont (France)
Publication Date: 2009 (France)
Pages: 494 and 487
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