Âme Soeur by ange de l'aube
Reviewed by Obsmama
Rating: M
Genre: Mystery/Romance
Characters: Edward/Bella
Summary AH/OOC. Edward and Bella are haunted by dreams. Dreams about a past that is not even theirs. Or is it? Their worlds will turn upside-down once these two lost souls find each other. Is this really the first time they have met?
Âme Soeur translated from French means soul mate. We are thrown into this story head first as it is full of love and sadness; confusion and pain. When we meet Bella and Edward at the age of 15, they have both been plagued by dreams that have haunted them their whole lives. They have managed these nightmares in drastically different ways. Bella’s parents, Charlie and Renee, have taken her from therapist to therapist seeking an answer to these disturbing dreams, finally making the decision to move back to Renee’s hometown of Forks, where the sad and unhappy Edward has spent his life hiding these nightmares from everyone, only confiding in his trusted cousin Alice. By the end of chapter one, as the Swan’s are descending into Forks, we learn not only that Bella and Edward both have nightmares but they share the same one.
The words, like the ones in the phrase book she had read the night before, called to a part of her that she could feel was buried deep down. She read them again, whispering them only loud enough for her ears.
"Why do you love me?"
Meanwhile, Edward Cullen was still sleeping in his bed. He'd had a rough night and his mom had allowed him to sleep in, not a common occurrence in Esme Cullen's military-run house. He turned in his sleep, placing his body face down in the bed. He started to mumble while his mom picked up the laundry that was in the basket just inside his bedroom. When she was about to leave Edward's room, trying to close the door as quietly as possible, she heard him mutter in his sleep,
"Because I have no choice…"
As the chapters progress, we, the reader, are treated to a wonderfully descriptive third party narration that not only expresses the pain and struggle of these teens but also captures the beauty of the landscape around them. With all the fics out there set in Forks, it’s easy to get tired of the trivial descriptions of the foliage and the green surroundings. The author has an amazing use of imagery from the ticking of a clock to the storm raging outside.
Bella sighed; the symphony of rain increased in tempo, slowly morphing into a new movement that included the whooshing of wind and the scratching of the claw-like branches of the tree just outside the window. None of those sounds was truly conducive to sleep; none of them were part of Bella's mental library of sounds. They were all foreign. Yet with all the time she lived in Seattle, she had never felt more at home, more at peace, than she did in Forks, even given some recent developments.
As the Swans get settled in, a curious event happens, and the dreams for both Edward and Bella stop with no apparent rhyme or reason. Their lives carry on and the first day of school descends. Our characters finally meet one another and the intensity is apparent from the beginning as they lock eyes and know immediately that there is something special about the other. The author does an impeccable job of really conveying the immediate and instant change between the characters.
Bella Swan stared at the boy that lay above her – first with shock – then with intrigue. She searched his forest green eyes and his flawless features with interest. Instead of being annoyed, she felt an awareness, as if a dormant part of her soul, an absence that had nagged at her consciousness her whole life, had finally awakened.
A sense of recognition screamed through each mind: "You!"
Suddenly, all the little things that had seemed so important just seconds before didn't matter any longer.
The rain outside intensified, the wind howled making the tree leaves swirl in a wave of green, but neither Edward nor Bella noticed. Inside each psyche, the relentless countdown – stopped.
The tick tock finally ended. There was only silence. There was only them.
Mysteries abound as characters interact in some interesting ways, furthering the plot. After a movie night at Bella’s new friend Alice’s house, a shared nightmare emerges for Edward and Bella and they discover that what they thought was their solitary battles are shared. We see that they are playing out the battered and torn relationship of Anthony and Marie, two lovers who have broken each other beyond recognition.
“I still love you," Bella heard her new voice answer him in barely a whisper.
The boy turned away in response to her words, causing her heart to crack. Before Bella could comprehend the pain, the boy abruptly turned to face her once more, and in a small trembling voice, he replied, "I still love you, too."
Bella felt her breaking heart suddenly swell with joy. She was stunned; the feeling was overwhelming, as though happiness had been missing from her life for so long it was foreign.
"It's irrelevant," the boy with Edward's captivating green eyes continued. "No matter how much we love each other, all we ever seem to do is hurt one another. At this rate we'll end up killing each other. Is that really what you want, Marie?"
"No," Bella heard herself reply meekly. Then she saw a hand she did not recognize – though obviously attached to her body – reach out and grab the boy's hand. "But this year apart nearly killed me, Anthony. Please…" she begged, squeezing the boy's hand in hers. "A life without you is no life at all."
The plot thickens as Bella is introduced to Edwards’s mother. A violent interaction occurs deepening the questions that both Bella and Edward have, as mysteries unlock; new ones come to the surface. Who were Anthony and Marie? Why do they seem to be haunting two 15 year olds? The story is 11 chapters in and the characters are on the same road to discovery as the reader. I am looking forward to seeing how this will unfold, what characters we will be introduced to, and how this will affect our Edward and Bella as they begin this romance that not only feels like a lifetime in the making but has transcended death. Is this the meaning of soul mates?
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