Touch

I am very impressed with Claire North. I have read both of her books and really loved the characters in both. I won't give anything away or write a lengthy review but I highly recommend reading anything by this writer. I look forward to more.

Honestly, there's something about British writing that turns me off. If it's your thing though, this might be a great book for you. It has its moments but I've been forcing myself to finish reading it (over a month now and still not 1/2 way through it). It does have its moments but overall, I personally would not recommend it and would have abstained from purchasing it if I had realized the author was British. Don't get me wrong, I love the Brits! But their idea of entertainment leaves me cold. Enchanting idea for a plot though.

i enjoyed The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and so looked forward to this book thinking it would be an interesting idea well executed; unfortunately I was disappointed and never cared about any of the characters. Shared attributes with the movie Fallen (similar premise and the confused story line).

This is a terrific book. Like her first effort "The Fourteen lives..." it starts with a conceit - in this case that there are "souls who pass through or inhabit human bodies, passing from one to another by touch. Then it sets down to work out what life would be like for such entities - how do they relate to normal humans, and indeed with other like themselves. I loved it, I think even better than her first novel, which itself was very good.

I was definitely one of those thrilled by `Claire North's' first book, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. `North' is a third pen name for Catherine Webb, writing (since she was 14) YA books and, as Kate Griffin, fantasy novels for adults. `Harry August' fell into SF territory, so the North persona was created for that. And it was a wonderfully inventive novel which sucked me in from the off and didn't let go.

So it was with great excitement that I started Touch. The premise of Harry August is that there are people who, through time, have been able to re-live their lives and times, alternate realities, bifurcating realities, and, because this has been the case since time immemorial, it is possible for such times-repeaters to meet each other in their times, and pass messages back and forth, so that an elderly, dying time-repeater in 2015 might meet a child, born in 2005, with a message from their life in 2060, which they are repeating in their own alternating universes - knowledge is passed back and forth, in this way.

Touch has the premise that some kind of body-hopping ghosts, created, at the moment of generally violent, murderous deaths, can come free from their dying bodies and jump ship, by skin to skin contact, and use the bodies and lives of their `hosts' like houses. The `ghosts' do not die unless the bodies they inhabit die without the ghost being able to jump ship by skin to skin contact with someone else, before the host body dies.

There is a similar premise as in Harry August, in that there are one group of people aware of this or with the power to do this, and another group of people, ditto, trying to stop them, for various reasons. So it's a ghost jumping fantasy version leading to a kind of entity shootout at the OK Corral. Many times.

And this was my problem. With Harry August, sure there was a basic theme (the specific re-living of a life, with different choices, but the theme did not get in the way of any other factors which make up a novel - narrative drive, and, most importantly, character - individuals, strongly drawn, which the reader progressively gets to know. We really DID get to know August over his 15 lives. Unfortunately, in Touch the various `entities' - in this case, primarily the major entity of `Kepler', who over the course of this book probably occupies several hundred individuals, some for years, some for seconds, and his/her/its major adversary entity (not named here, in order to avoid spoilers) are leaping lives so frequently and dizzyingly that it becomes impossible (for this reader, at least) to particularly care about the entities, the lives, or who will win that entity shoot out. Or, I should say, the final entity shoot-out, as over the course of what felt like a very very long, albeit very fast-moving action novel, bloody kinds of shoot-outs and violence occur, like the jumping, again and again and again.

I had the curious feeling, all the way through the novel, that all this endless jumping, endless which-side-will-win-and-what-tricks-and-feints-will-they-need-to-use-to-do-it, were all some kind of preface and preamble, and surely `the novel' would begin SOON. Harry August had been so assuredly done, that I couldn't believe North could have made something so predictable as this felt to be. I was on the verge of abandoning it, many many, times, but then the author would make an observation which kind of woke me up, and I thought `aha, NOW it begins, so I pressed on. That I did keep on somehow going, despite huge disappointment has to make me raise my rating to the unenthusiastic `OK'

The ending, as in all OK Corral battles, will always have an inevitability, but the reader ought to have an investment in hoping/wanting one version of a possible ending rather than another. I'm afraid I had none, and went `oh, that' ; if the ending would have been different, I would also have thought `oh, that'

Judicious and drastic editing might have prevented this reader feeling the journey was endless. This would have been a pretty intriguing novella or short novel, but stretched out to more than 400 pages it felt like a slog.

“Problem with moving into a new body, you never quite know where it’s been.”

Touch is the second novel by British author, Claire North. The entity known to his/her/its enemies as Kepler has been around for quite some time. And Kepler is not the only entity of this type: a ghost who can move from body to body by touch. Carefully done, this can happen with minimal disruption to lives; of course, long term hosts will find their lives much changed, although Kepler tries to leave them significantly better off. But just as Kepler is settling into a mutually beneficial arrangement with Josephine Cebula, she is shot and killed in a Turkish Metro station, by a gunman who is clearly watching for where Kepler will go next. Who is trying to kill Kepler, and why?

This is a fast-paced thriller that spans over two centuries, and at least three continents. The plot is highly original, taking several turns before reaching a spectacular climax at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. North gives the reader characters who will charm or, in some cases repulse. Their flaws and foibles are realistic and may well have the reader wondering about their own reaction to this sort of immortality. Their dialogue is natural, and the banter between Coyle and Kepler is often snappy and amusing. North gives a whole new meaning to the concept of “estate agent”, and her description of the chase through the museum conjures the image of a Mexican wave. This latest offering by Claire North is clever and often funny, and readers who enjoyed The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August will not be disappointed. Quite brilliant!

With thanks to Hachette and TheReadingRoom for my copy to read and review.

Claire North truly has a gift for building plausible and fascinating stories around protagonists that are a breed apart. In The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August we had a narrator who was one of a small band of humans who relived their lives again and again; in The Sudden Appearance of Hope the eponymous character became impossible to remember as she moved through puberty, never imprinting on the long term memory of those she met. And in Touch, we are guided through the strange world of a consciousness who has no body but rather "jumps" from one person to another via touch, wearing these skins as his/her/its own for a time before moving on to another.

This is a story of love and revenge -- but the love is of a different sort, both more casual and more intimate than what most humans would consider. Our main character, known as Kepler because that name will do as well as any other, has lived for centuries, jumped between young and old, man and woman, every race, and in bodies mostly beautiful but sometimes just convenient. The plot is driven by Kepler's desire for revenge when one of his hosts is needlessly murdered, and in his efforts to track down the culprits he uncovers a covert group bent on tracking down Kepler's kind, known generally as ghosts, and wiping them out. At least so it seems.

North takes great advantage of Kepler's changing nature, examining the fluidity of identity and the various permutations of love. There is fast paced action, as a fleeing Kepler or those with similar capabilities as him jump from body to body in throngs of humans, needing only a hint of skin to make that jump. When a body is tried on, Kepler notices things light changes in eyesight, aching joints, nagging hunger, and the pangs of addiction. While he often leaves a body in a better place, he also can be nonchalant about taking advantage of whoever is, literally, at hand.

As the plot thickens we are sometimes provided peaks into Kepler's past lives/bodies, his earlier career as an "estate agent" for others of his breed, helping them find prospective hosts with all the traits they want (from gender and looks, to education and wealth). Sometimes he works with the consent of those to be worn, and other times not. And these glimpses into the past couple with the action in the present, as another of Kepler's kind proves to be equal parts sociopathic, narcissistic, and needy. There is a deep humanity in Kepler, but also something inhuman. His love is familiar and foreign, both superficial and deep. Clair North brings this shadow world alive, filled with immortal ghosts, moral questions, and a love of life. Recommended.

Whew, what a crazy ride! Author Claire North has an incredible imagination and with this book, she kindles the gray matter till it’s fizzing. This was a book that I couldn’t put down.

We follow the protagonist, Kepler, as she transfers from body to body because she’s being hunted and she’s trying to find out why. I’m going to call the main character a ‘she’ simply because that matches the author’s gender, but the book is cryptic about Kepler’s identity. Actually, Kepler seems to be flexible about her sexual preferences; she identifies with the person inside, not the outside trappings. We know Kepler’s been around for many generations and has ‘lived’ in both men and women. We know Kepler’s heart is in the right place, but her decisions are frequently pragmatic, due to her unique living arrangements.

To enjoy this book, you’ll need to suspend moral values and simply listen to what Kepler is saying and doing. Kepler is on the run but she’s clinging to humanity’s best instincts, all the while fighting to save her life. The plot is full of surprises as she drops bombshells about her history and as current events unfold. She’s developed a number of Plan B’s over the years, and she draws upon all of them.

The constant changes of scenery in Europe took a little getting used to. Unless you’re quite familiar with Eastern and Western European cities you may find it a little discombobulating initially, but stick with it. The story inside the story is always present, and the scenery is merely a backdrop for the real action; the personalities, their motivations, their tricks.

When a science fiction book steps off the main, well-trodden plot pathways and causes readers to be both excited by the action and challenged to think about morality in a broader scenario, well, it is quite satisfying.

As much as I was mesmerized by “The Sudden Appearance of Hope” and “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August,” I have to say that “Touch” does not measure up. I suspect that those readers who have been excited about this novel have not experienced the depth of her talent exploding in her other writings. In the world of speculative fiction, the concept that some people can turn into “ghosts” when they die and are able to occupy someone else’s body has merit. Unfortunately, in North’s treatment, it is gimmicky. And that is not a word I would use about her other two amazing novels. The protagonist is male or female, depending on the “host” body. In most of the first two thirds, he/she “jumps” non-stop from body to body. Not only is it confusing and superficial, but North is not clear about where this is headed. The last third is more exciting, but I really cannot recommend the book. I suggest spending your time re-reading the other two books mentioned above.

Reading Claire North is like dining at a five-star restaurant while the chef tells you a clever, mind-bending story. All you need to bring is an appetite for the beautifully strange.

Reminded me a lot of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire. Ms. North partakes of Rice's lavish writing and storytelling skills. An excerpt:

"Hecuba's scowl deepened. There is a face which I have rarely seen since the 1880s. It was the fact of that age, when sideburns erupted from the side of the head like whiskers on a water rat; when the mustache was an explosion of curling wax and could scowl something extraordinary,. I have sometimes looked for that face, and found it only flaring out from the crabbed old men who squat in the shade of overcooked equatorial countries, or corrupted technocrats glowering through their insufficient pensions.

"Hecuba scowled; his soul scowled with him."

Now THAT is what I call writing.

This author has certainly hit the big time with a bang, first with _The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August_ last year, and now this one. Both of them deal with variations on the same idea, too: The ability to survive indefinitely by escaping death. Harry August was able to go back in time and be reborn with full memories and adult knowledge of his previous lives, while the nameless narrator of _Touch_ (whom some call Kepler) is one of a tiny, tiny fraction of the human race who can simply jump from one body to another -- any age, any gender -- simply by touching a bit of exposed skin. In a crowd, he can practically surf, skipping quickly from one host to the next, but his kind have learned to prefer extended residence -- assuming you can find the proper "skin." The host's mind just goes to sleep for the duration, however, so the jumper has no access to his/her memory or thoughts. This requires research of the potential to avoid unpleasant surprises. (Terminal cancer is no fun, nor is even athlete's foot.) Kepler has made a living as a sort of realtor, searching out and providing access to new hosts for others of his kind, based on their particular requirement. Because "we always see how something else could be better than what we have."

Given certain psychological weirdnesses, the sort of thing you might expect in these circumstances, Kepler has been surviving comfortably for several hundred years now, but he's also aware that over the centuries various groups have become aware of the existence of the jumpers among them and have attempted repeatedly to eradicate them, driven mostly by fear and often motivated by religion. And now a host he had become especially fond of has been murdered in an attempt to kill him -- because he certainly can die if he can't escape into another body in time. Kepler is pissed. His kind tend to run in the face of danger (it's so easy), but it's finally time to strike back.

North takes her premise, tacks it up on the wall for close study, and then proceeds to ring every change she can think of on the possibilities of Kepler's existence and situation. Some of them are obvious: If you don't have money, simply jump into the cashier behind the counter, hand your dazed previous host a fistful of cash from the register, and immediately jump back. But other ideas and their implications are highly original. ("I love the internet. Online banking! Facebook!") Watching Kepler and his peers deal with events will have you thinking up interesting situations for them yourself. But he's deeper than most, and more thoughtful about those who bodies he borrows. "All that your death would be to me, as I carried on with my life, was a few seconds. Consequences are for the flesh."

But North has also shown herself adept with the language generally, and especially with description: "There is a face which I have rarely seen since the 1880s. It was the face of that age, when sideburns erupted from the side of the head like whiskers on a water rat; when the moustache was an explosion of curling wax and could scowl something extraordinary." That's lovely stuff. And I will definitely be in queue for whatever this author comes up with next.

Kepler is a ghost, transferring from body to body by a touch, flitting from one person to another and leaving them with no memories of the time when someone else was in control of their body. Kepler has been around for centuries, sometimes inhabiting a host for years, sometimes only a few mere seconds. This is how it’s always been, until one day everything changes, and Kepler is being hunted by a group that wants to eliminate ghosts and their takeovers. Only it’s not quite as simple as all that, and there’s a larger mystery afoot.

For all that pains are taken to leave Kepler’s original gender out of things, to me, Kepler reads as very much male. I can’t quite put my finger on why, and possibly I’m dead wrong, but that’s how the character came across to me. Very little is said about Kepler’s origins, only their mode of dying, and that heightens the mystery and leaves you with no concrete answers by the end. And what I love is that it doesn’t really matter. Kepler is Kepler. Even by their own definition. Kepler is whoever is being inhabited at that moment. Male or female, it makes no difference. There is no preference. It seems to be quite similar for many of the other ghosts that are encountered through the novel, too. I like that notion, that gender is a thing that ceases to mean anything after numerous decades and numerous hosts have passed. When you can jump into any body and live whatever life you choose, having one hard-and-fast gender that you must be for any length of time does seem a little bit too rigid a notion to keep around for long. North did wonders with expressing that without saying it outright, or trying to beat the reader over the head with the idea.

The mystery itself, of who is behind the attempted assassinations of ghosts (for ghosts can actually die if their host bodies die and there’s nobody else to jump to), is interesting, though for all that there are assassination attempts, the book isn’t a very action-heavy book. There are a few scenes, yes, but most of the novel involves discovery and contemplation, with plenty of flashbacks for context and to keep the reader jumping around almost as much as Harry August did. It’s not quite as nonlinear as that, but it does have a large number of flashbacks, all of which do provide wonderful context and backstory and flesh out the characters and the situation a lot, and the way North handles it is skillful and deft, so while it may be a little tough for those used to more linear stories, I find that it works very well to tell numerous branches of a long story that are all coming together at pivotal points.

All this is why even when the plot slowed down or got a little too tangled in itself for a while, I loved Touch. It’s a fascinating exploration of character, of what people can do when they’re given the chance to live forever and lead any kind of life they want, from any point, so long as they can find the appropriate person to take over and be. The writing is beautiful, the story intricate, the characters endlessly fascinating. It questions what we accept as normal and forces us to bend our minds around an entirely new viewpoint. Utterly amazing, and well worth reading for anyone who wants to submerge themselves in a unique and powerful story.

Touch by Claire North details the life of a character, well more so, a consciousness that goes by the name of Kepler.this consciousness has the ability to jump from body to body, overtaking that persons will and movements while it embodies them. It is a “ghost” and can move from person to person at will, but only with a touch of bare skin and the first jump only being catalyzed by a traumatic event. But then his latest skin, Josephine Cebula, is assassinated and not just because Kepler is wearing her skin, but because of a plot that Kepler spends the rest of the book trying to unearth to avenge her.

This work is very well written and extremely descriptive. You live in the moment with this character and remember its past jumps spanning the entire world over, centuries over even. The writing itself is fantastic, and I found the narration to be all in good. Peter Kenny jumps very well from his own native British accent, to those of a Southern Bell and Turkish woman flawlessly.

This work by North is truly touching and it gives a whole new meaning to the song “Under My Skin.” I could listen to this book over and over again, never once to put it down. It’ll change the way you see the human soul and consciousness, making you think deeper than just the superficial.

Audiobook provided for review by the publisher.

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In the latest iteration in the body-jumper genre of science fiction, Kepler is hopping from person to person across Eastern Europe, looking for the cabal out to murder him.

I read the first half of this on a long car trip, all the little problems in The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August are multiplied exponentially here. It is mainly a travelogue with a little bit of action and flashbacks doled out at irregular intervals. Back in the comfort of my home with hundreds of unread books around, I found myself unable to muster up the will to finish.

A better book in this genre: The Lives of Tao: Tao Series Book One, my husband and I both enjoyed it (although, admittedly it has problems too, but more action)

I like the premise of this book - that there are "ghosts" in the world who take over people's bodies by touching them and that they can change bodies at will. It's reminiscent of Altered Carbon or The Lives of Tao (but doesn't measure up to either of those).

There were times when this book was 4 stars, but the storyline got repetitive in places. My biggest issue was the ending. When I had about 20 pages left and the story wasn't anywhere close to being resolved, I knew I was going to have a problem. the ending was super convenient and unbelievable.

It's not a terrible book, but it is disappointing after the goodness that was The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

It was a brilliant concept, and the writing is fabulous - the "life" of the creatures in the book is portrayed in such detailed and thoughtful ways, that it is absolutely believable.

First criticism: it's not SF, but fantasy. There isn't a single scientific element to it. Be warned.

Also, the weakness is the story. It's at its core a conventional "catch the bad guy" novel, with some rather callous "collateral damage" of innocent bystanders. It's really hard to develop a feeling for the central character, when it so callously exposes others to danger.

Around the middle of the book, the story really starts to drag with many side trips into the protagonist's past. It then picks up in the last third of the book, but the ending was profoundly disturbing and unsatisfying.

The premise of this novel is really interesting. The protagonist can jump into any person's body simply by touching their skin. He becomes them and the original person 'goes to sleep' while he inhabits. I have loved everything else by this author and decided to give this book. Unfortunately, I read a little over half the book and gave up. The author started with such an unique idea that she could have literally anything with it. I thought that the story was unremarkable and not entertaining as much as I'd hoped it would be. There were interesting parts when we went back in time to the narrator's origins to present time. However, it might be that I just didn't like the narrator.

The previous book by Claire North (The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August) had set a high standard. So, evidently I had huge expectations from this one. But unfortunately this book is not in the same category. Both the books are a bit common, in that, the protagonist never die (in a sense), so the story is similar. The other issue is the book is complex and I couldn't make sense of entire chapter (worth 3-4 pages); It had no place in the book. The origin of the main guy left me confused. Requesting the author to not write any new series with the "infinitely living creatures" topic as the theme.

Really great concept! Three stars for concept. I was really excited about the premise of this book -- that there are incorporeal beings who live through the bodies and assume the lives of other people just by touching them. And that premise was explored pretty well, which satisfied me pretty much. But the plot that carries you through this fascinating universe is just your basic, run-of-the-mill, trying-to-kill-a-bad-guy plot, and there's not much in the way of character development or motivation. (The main character falls in love with everyone? And that's why they need revenge on someone who killed one of the unlimited number of people they loved?) I mean, it's okay. I stayed and read the whole thing. I just wish we had gotten some more of the side-stories (which were much more interesting than the main plot) about what it's actually LIKE to switch bodies and assume people's lives at whim. I can read a sub-par murder mystery anytime. I wanted more of what made this particular universe unique.

Great read! The plot moves quickly through time and space, as does the main character. If you are the kind of person who wants to think deeply about "what it all means", this book will provide you food for thought. (Would I want to be a "ghost"? Who would I be? How would I be sure of my safety? If I had all the time in the world, what would I do?) However, if you just want to read a fast-moving plot with an intriguing main character and surprising twists and turns, you will also enjoy this book.

I loved this book. The time traveling, gender and genre bending story could be the plot line to a monotonous technical work or a sentimental ramble. But it treads a perfect line. Simple 'rules' in the ghost-centric world mean less mechanics and more character and adventure. Smart and interesting and lovely.

I loved The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August so I pre-ordered this book. Harry August was smart, philosophical, funny at places andvery exciting. This book is a week effort to create something similar. It is full of unnecessary descriptions of clothes that characters wear, of hotel rooms where someone spends 5 minutes and towns (these almost readlike travel guides). The story is a drag at places, ideas are repeated several times and characters motivations are not very clear or almost trivial. I read the book to the end, hoping that somehow it will redeem itself, but it didn't.

Claire North gave us the very entertaining “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August” and follows it up with “Touch”.
Touch features an individual who can ‘jump’ bodies just by touching flesh, bodies being left are left confused and wondering where the time has gone, with no memories of what may have happened while they were “occupied”. So for hundreds of years our individual has been jumping into men and women and living various lives and identities.
As we join the book, our individual (“Kepler”) narrowly escapes when “her” host is assassinated and she realises that an organisation is hunting her. As Kepler is tracked through many body swaps, she/he tries to find out why she is a target…
Harry August had elements of one of my favourite books, “Replay” and this has a nod towards the sci-fi book “Jumper”, a human with abilities being tracked by a shadowing organisation, but Claire North is a talented author and very much gives her own spin. You have to concentrate (Multiple body jumping just on one page is not unusual), but many interesting aspect are raised within a satisfying plot.
Like “Harry August”, this comes down to a battle between two individuals with unique abilities but it is clever and absorbing stuff.