Wednesday, March 7, 2018

The Coincidence Makers

The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum
St. Martin's Press: 3/6/18
eBook review copy; 304 pages
ISBN-13: 9781250146113

The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum is a highly recommended genre-bending novel that is part science fiction, part  fantasy, part love story, and part mystery. Read this novel and you will never believe in coincidences again.

Guy, Emily, and Eric are the coincidence makers in this novel. The three were recruited and trained together by the General to be a part of the secret organization devoted to creating and carrying out coincidences. Guy and Emily were promoted from the ranks of imaginary friends, to join the coincidence makers. See, nothing in the world is the result of a random occurrence, even imaginary friends.

The secret coincidence makers maneuver people and events to create or design the changes or realizations that will provide people with the inspiration or desire to change a worldview, create a work of art, or fall in love, or discover a remarkable breakthrough or write poetry. Nothing is left to chance. The coincidence makers are highly trained agents who carefully, skillfully plan and time events so they achieve the desired outcome, resulting in the completion of the plan and their mission and do so without generating the sense of an artificial encounter.

The Coincidence Makers has an original premise and, when the coincidence makers are working, the novel is fast paced. There are sections between the action that includes excerpts from the books and the lessons the three had to take in order to become a coincidence maker. These lessons, while interesting, slow down the pace of the novel. Other parts can be funny, witty, and quirky. It is probably better to not give away a lot of the story before you read it. This is also a novel that required a bit more leeway from me, at the beginning, to stick with it longer than I might have normally, but the ending was worth it.


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