Book Review: Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven
Evelyn has lived through a thousand lifetimes and in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday. Hunted across the years and through different countries, she doesn’t understand why Arden – the person she loves and dreads in equal measure – won’t let her live into adulthood. Their appearances, nationalities and genders might change, but the fatal end is always the same. Evelyn must die, and due to their inexplicably and infinitely tied fates, Arden’s life is forfeited every time too.
Death by the hand of the one she loves is an inevitability that Evelyn has come to accept but the problem is, she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now. More importantly, she needs to survive long enough for the bone marrow transplant that could save her ailing sister’s life. With the clock ticking down to her birthday, and the window for the transplant narrowing, Evelyn must first find Arden and then figure out a way of stalling their mutual destruction in order to fulfil her duty to her sister. And if she can work out why Arden keeps hunting her and why she can’t remember how it all began, perhaps she can find a way to stop the perpetual cycle of torment.
When a publisher bills a book as their “biggest YA launch of 2025”, the expectation for readers is that they’re going to be in for something truly special. Yet so often books struggle to live up to the pre-release hype. Mercifully, that’s not a problem Our Infinite Fates has. Laura Steven’s latest young adult fantasy is a sweeping and tragic tale that transcends time and borders and social constructs. A bittersweet twist on the star-crossed, enemies-to-lovers trope, the story shifts between present-day Wales and the past lives that Evelyn and Arden have experienced, taking readers from early noughties El Salvador to 1980s Russia to 1770s Dutch East Indies, right back to Lundenberg in the 1000s, with other eras and countries in between.
If a hero is someone who will give up love to save the world, then a villain is the reverse. Someone who will give up the world to save love.“
Steven’s story isn’t so much a romance as it is a supernatural love story, with all the aching tenderness and existential heartache you’d expect from a novel about two souls destined to hurt each other over and over again. Every page is lyrically written and interspersed with actual poetry that reveals the inner turmoil and everlasting love Arden is unable to express out loud. The whole book has such a beautiful grasp of the things that make us human and the small moments – the loves, the hopes, the joys – that make a life worth living, and in Evelyn’s and Arden’s case, worth dying for too.
If you’re seeking a novel that’s epic in plot, this isn’t it. It might cross numerous continents and time periods but there’s an intimacy to Steven’s story that centres wholly around these two tortured souls, and it does require readers to have a little patience. The minor subplot involving Evelyn’s sister brings a sense of urgency and humanity to the fantastical theme of past lives and reincarnation, yet every action, every emotion and every chapter comes straight back to Evelyn and Arden’s relationship. It would have been easy for the flashes into the past to feel repetitive – another murder, just in a different place and year – but Steven makes every fleeting glimpse into Evelyn and Arden’s history feel vital to what’s happening in the present.
Our Infinite Fates is the perfect book for those who love tortured characters, tragic histories and poetic storytelling. You’ll simultaneously want to race to the end to find out if there’s any hope of salvation and take your time with each chapter so that you can appreciate all the angst poured into the pages, because this is a heart-wrencher of the truest kind.
★★★★
Our Infinite Fates was published by Penguin on 27 February 2025
