Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: In Memoriam
AUTHOR: ‘Nathan Burgoine
NARRATOR: Jerry L. Wheeler
PUBLISHER: Dominant Trident Books and/or Lethe Press
LENGTH: 1 hrs and 35 mins (71 pages)
RELEASE DATE: December 14th , 2016
BLURB:
With one diagnosis, editor James Daniels learns that he’s literally running out of time. Looking at his life, he sees one regret: Andy, the one that got away. Andy was the first man that James ever loved, but Andy has been gone for years, and might not want to be found.
But as his cancer progresses and James starts to lose his grip on time and memory, it might just be that time and memory are losing their grip on James, too.
It’s the biggest and most important re-write of his life. Restoring love from nothing but memory might be possible, if the past isn’t too far gone to fix.
REVIEW:
I selected this because I needed something a tad more bittersweet (and a tad more substantive) after reading one too many too-frothy M/M romances. Turns out this was a great choice!
If you were diagnosed with terminal brain cancers and given less than a year to live, what would you change about your life? What if you’d lived much of your life “in your head” and the cancers were affecting your recall, your sense of time, and even your ability to read and make new memories?
What if you start re-thinking some of your life choices, replaying those incidents in your head, and what if after awakening from your mini-seizures, those re-imagined timelines seem to be becoming real … or is that just one more symptom of your condition?
Socrates is reputed to have stated that “The unexamined life is not worth living” at his trial. Of course, in his case that resulted in his being found guilty of “impiety and corrupting youth” and sentenced to death. Our main character here has already been given that sentence, so what’s to lose?
This is the tale of one man’s re-examination of his life choices. And while it’s not primarily intended as a romance, the choices that James made, and is now remaking, certainly pushes it into that category. When the opening chapter of a novel involves a diagnosis of a terminal disease, one cannot reasonably expect to have a HEA ending. But, call me a hopeless romantic, this one seems to have one as I interpret it.
I actually listened to this for free via my local library’s HOOPLA lending program, but it’s readily available as an e-book or through Audible.
Jerry L. Wheeler narrated the audio-book and does a good job with pacing and keeps the characters distinct without going too far with accents and gender differences.
RATING: 
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