The novel shares some themes with other well known stories of immortality (Nicholas Monserrat’s The Master Mariner, for example), but it's anything but a retread. It’s an overcoming-the-odds love story where the odds are seriously, seemingly insurmountably, stacked against the lovers. . . .  We know something Ruth doesn’t know, and it’s painful being unable to comfort her. Any story with characters so real that we wish we could reach into the book and give them a hug demands to be read.