To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis

I thoroughly enjoyed this read and the one before it - Hard to Die. I love books that leave me with tons of questions. The author creates an interesting possibility for the afterlife and weaves in real people in a way that is seamless and intriguing. I have lots of pondering to do and research too after finishing this read, which to me signifies a great story!

The prequel to the acclaimed Hard to Die, To Live Forever takes you on a journey all its own. Fantastic as a stand-alone or as part of the set, the characters creep out of the history books and into your brain. Can’t wait for more from Watkins.

"To Life Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis" is a genre-busting novel encompassing Historical Adventure, Young Adult, Thriller, Fantasy, and Contemporary Fiction. This is a courageous endeavor from the get-go and Andra Watkins, somehow, pulls it off.

The story follows Emmaline, a precocious nine-year-old, as she escapes late-seventies New Orleans, running from her madam of a mother and the clutches of the judge who awarded sole-custody of Emmaline to her mother, forbidding any contact at all with her beloved musician of a daddy. Emmaline’s focus throughout the story is to somehow get to Nashville and reunite with her father. The judge has his own designs on the child for reasons that become darkly clear as the novel progresses.

We meet Meriwether Lewis in a bar in Nowhere, a place where restless spirits wait for chances to help the living navigate trouble. It is a bleak place not for the faint of heart. Watkins makes it seem real enough and opens questions about who we are and where we go when our time among the living is done.

The mystery of how and why Meriwether Lewis died in 1809 at the age of thirty-five on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee in is one of the lynchpins that holds the story together and propels it forward. In a wonderful leap of imagination, Andra Watkins pits two adversarial figures straight out of American history against each other for one last deadly confrontation, with the winner gaining redemption and the loser falling into the eternal abyss.

The character of Emmaline is the fulcrum upon which these two ancient enemies must gain their balance. She is carefully drawn and well crafted. Shirley Temple she’s not. She is delightfully human and it is a pleasure to watch her discover that there is much more to life than her own little world and her own notions of who people are. The repartee between Em and Lewis reads true. It both softens and hardens them as they realize a mutual dependence that each of them must trust in order to survive.

The action follows the Natchez Trace, which runs from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. It is an arduous road through both geography and history. Watkins depicts it as a Southern, and American, treasure, populated with men and women who could arise from any time during the last few hundred years.

"To Live Forever" is a compelling read. Pages turn of their own volition. The ending is satisfying and opens the door to speculation about how Emmaline’s life will change and grow after we catch our last glimpse of her. That is a foundational trait of excellent storytelling.