Dawn Edelstein is a death doula, who helps her clients manage the transition between life and death. In 10 years of work, she has learned a lot about how to confront and manage death. But then she is forced to face her own mortality when she is involved in a plane crash. In what she assumes are her last moments, the face that flashes into her mind is not that of her husband or daughter but of Wyatt, a man she loved 15 years earlier when she was studying for a doctorate in Egyptology.

Dawn survives but her world has been rocked off its axis. She must decide whether to return to her old life in Boston or go to Egypt to reconnect with Wyatt and finish her abandoned studies on The Book of Two Ways, an Egyptian map to the afterlife. Fate is offering her a second chance and she starts to doubt the choices she’s made. Her fears are raised in questions she must confront. What does a well-lived life look like? Can she live with her choices or is there a way to revisit the past? When her time runs out, who does she want with her at the end?

This thought-provoking novel uses Egyptian history and archaeology, quantum physics, parallel universes and philosophy to examine questions of life, death, love, loss, choices and missed opportunities. A fascinating and profound read.

Reviewed by Melinda Woledge