Teaser: The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams

The Alchemy of Forever by Avery Williams

"I don't have anyone," she says, the wind lifting her hair behind her.

I reach out for her thin shoulder. I look deep into her green eyes. "Not even the boy at the bar?"

"Especially not him," Taryn says fiercely.

I nod, understanding. "You won't find any comfort in death," I promise her. "It's a void. It's nothing. You only want to die if you desire that nothingness. If you don't want to be alone, that means you're still alive. There's hope."

"Who are you?" she asks. I can barely hear her voice over the wind.

I think back over my unnaturally long life - my childhood in London, swimming in the sea in the south of France, arriving in San Francisco in the 1960s - and scroll through all the names I've gone by, starting with Seraphina and ending with Jennifer. I look her in the eye. "I am no one."

~ p. 57

After spending six hundred years on Earth, Seraphina Ames has seen it all. Eternal life provides her with the world's riches but at a very high price: innocent lives. Centuries ago, her boyfriend, Cyrus, discovered a method of alchemy that allows them to take the bodies of other humans from jumping from one vessel to the next, ending the human's life in the process. No longer able to bear the guilt of what she's done, Sera escapes from Cyrus and vows to never kill again.

Then sixteen-year old Kailey Morgan gets into a horrific car accident right in front of her, and Sera accidentally takes over her body while trying to save her. For the first time, Sera finds herself enjoying the life of the person she's inhabiting--and falling in love with the boy who lives next door. But Cyrus will stop at nothing until she's his again, and every moment she stays, she's putting herself and the people she's grown to care about in danger. Will Sera have to give up the one thing that's eluded her for centuries: true love?

Summary by Goodreads