Bone Dressing by Michelle I. Brooks

A complex dance between past lives and present.

Sydney is an angry young woman of almost 18. Her parents are both dead, she misses them desperately, and she lives in foster care. She's smart, but has some huge conflicts -- mostly in school, and mostly with one teacher. Until she meets Beau one night in the cemetery, she's living what she feels to be a rather aimless and lost life.

Beau is the signal for a turning point in her life. He, and his little sister, Sarah, and the black panther, T.J., appear to help Syd remember. To remember the past and to fix it.

This is a story of love and loss; life, death and rebirth; and, possibly, learning to live and trust. "Bone Dressing" is the first of seven books about the lives and loves of Sydney's past. In this one, her past life is that of Rachel, who we first meet in the story as a name on a gravestone not too far from Syd's parents' burial place. Rachel's story is tragic and beautiful. And through it Sydney finds a piece of herself that I don't think she knew existed, but once found she knows that she has missed it.

Sydney has a task before her... an almost impossible task. She needs to fix her life by healing the past. And not just her past. The only way for Syd to become whole is to find herself in her past lives and heal it. She needs to face her greatest fears and her greatest enemy, who has followed her down through the ages.

"Bone Dressing" is the first of an expected seven books, with the second soon-to-be available. Michelle Brooks showed me in just one book she has what it takes to be a masterful storyteller and a weaver of complex themes. She isn't afraid to test unknown waters, and this book/series is definitely treading them. The theme of reincarnation and past lives isn't really a new one, but Ms. Brooks explores it in a new and fresh way.