Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven 💞 A Devastating Love Story About Choosing Each Other Again and Again

What if you knew how your story ended? What if you spent lifetime after lifetime trying to change it?

Laura Steven’s Our Infinite Fates takes a premise that had been living in the author’s mind since 2009 and transforms it into one of the most emotionally devastating fantasy romances I’ve read. Inspired by themes of doomed love, fate, grief, and reincarnation, the novel follows Evelyn across centuries of lives as she tries to understand the curse that binds her to Arden and whether destiny can ever truly be escaped.

At its heart, Our Infinite Fates is not a story about immortality. It’s a story about love, loss, and whether loving someone is worth the inevitable grief that follows. The answer Laura Steven arrives at is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

(Affiliate Links)

They’ve loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They’ve killed each other in every one.

Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul―and survival―is tethered to hers.

The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and her little sister needs her for bone marrow transplants in order to stay alive. If Evelyn wants to save her sister, she’ll have to:

1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.

Evelyn is a fascinating protagonist because she is simultaneously ancient and young. In her current life, she lives in Wales as Bran alongside her mother and younger sister Gracie. She knows she must survive long enough to turn eighteen so she can donate bone marrow and save Gracie’s life.

Yet beneath that contemporary storyline sits centuries of memories, trauma, and loss. What makes Evelyn work so well is that she’s an unreliable narrator. She doesn’t remember the beginning of her story with Arden, meaning readers are forced to uncover the truth alongside her. Every recovered memory changes how we understand her relationship, her choices, and the lives she’s lived.

The novel becomes as much about rediscovering herself as it does rediscovering her love story.

Arden remains elusive for much of the novel, largely because Evelyn herself doesn’t fully understand him. Their relationship forms the emotional backbone of the story, but Steven cleverly avoids making it repetitive despite spanning countless lives. Each incarnation feels distinct, with different circumstances, personalities, genders, and emotional dynamics creating new layers to their connection.

The question at the heart of the novel is never simply “Are they destined to be together?” It’s whether they are choosing each other every time. And the book intentionally leaves room for readers to decide.

Gracie could easily have existed solely as a plot device, but she quickly becomes one of the novel’s emotional anchors.

Her cancer diagnosis gives Evelyn a reason to keep fighting in the present-day timeline, but her relationship with her sister becomes much more than that. Their lovingly antagonistic sibling dynamic provides warmth and humour throughout an otherwise emotionally intense narrative. It’s easy to see why Laura Steven has spoken about feeling closest to Gracie as a character.

The primary storyline follows Evelyn’s current life in Wales, where surviving until her eighteenth birthday is critical if she wants to save her sister. Running parallel to this are chapters from Evelyn’s previous lives. Rather than moving chronologically, these lives move backwards through time as the present-day narrative moves forwards. As Evelyn remembers more, the reader learns more. The structure is incredibly effective, creating a constant sense of discovery and recontextualisation.

What initially feels like a romance slowly unfolds into something much larger, a mystery about fate, identity, memory, and choice. Some of the strongest chapters come from individual past lives. The Siberia sequence is particularly memorable, showcasing the novel’s ability to balance romance, tension, and emotional vulnerability. The El Salvador chapter stands out as one of the most emotionally powerful sections in the book, feeling both intimate and devastating.

As each life unfolds, the reader begins assembling the larger puzzle alongside Evelyn. And when the final pieces lock into place, the payoff is worth the wait.

Steven’s structure is arguably the novel’s greatest achievement. Managing a story that spans centuries, multiple identities, countless deaths, and dozens of timelines could easily become confusing. Instead, it feels remarkably controlled.

Knowing that the author used spreadsheets to map every timeline makes perfect sense when reading the finished novel. Each life serves a purpose, revealing a different aspect of Evelyn and Arden’s relationship while exploring a different emotional register.

Laura Steven has described wanting to “play different keys of the piano” with each life, and that philosophy is visible throughout the novel. Some stories are tragic. Others are romantic. Others are frightening, sensual, hopeful, or devastating.

The first-person perspective works brilliantly because Evelyn’s incomplete memories allow the narrative to function simultaneously as a romance and a mystery. Every revelation changes the shape of the story.

Thematically, this is a novel about love. Not idealised or perfect love but love that persists despite pain, grief, distance, time, and death. The central question isn’t whether love lasts forever. It’s whether love is worth choosing even when you know it will hurt.

Grief permeates every page. Evelyn has lost everyone she has ever loved, often repeatedly. The novel explores how grief changes a person and how carrying loss does not mean abandoning hope. Many of the strongest emotional moments come not from death itself, but from the anticipation of inevitable loss.

Our Infinite Fates constantly asks whether our futures are predetermined. Thematically, it draws inspiration from self-fulfilling prophecies, mythology, and philosophical questions surrounding destiny. Are Evelyn and Arden trapped in a cycle they cannot escape, or are they actively choosing each other every lifetime? Steven never forces an answer, and the ambiguity is part of what makes the story resonate.

Despite all its heartbreak, Our Infinite Fates is surprisingly hopeful. Again and again, the novel argues that connection matters. That loss does not invalidate love. That grief is evidence of something meaningful having existed. It is, fundamentally, a story about continuing anyway.

While often marketed as fantasy romance, Our Infinite Fates feels equally at home alongside literary speculative fiction. Readers expecting extensive worldbuilding or complex magic systems may be surprised. The fantastical premise exists primarily to explore emotional and philosophical questions.

Fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, reincarnation stories, doomed romances, and character-driven speculative fiction will find plenty to love here.

Our Infinite Fates is an ambitious, emotional, and beautifully structured novel that uses reincarnation not as a gimmick, but as a lens through which to explore love, grief, memory, and choice.

Its greatest strength lies in how human it feels despite its fantastical premise. Every life matters. Every loss matters. Every choice matters.

And by the time the final page arrives, Laura Steven has made a compelling argument that love is worth all of it.

Positives of Our Infinite Fates

• Excellent dual timeline structure
• Deeply emotional central romance
• Strong exploration of grief and loss
• Clever use of an unreliable narrator
• Distinct and memorable past-life stories
• Balances mystery and romance beautifully

Negatives of Our Infinite Fates

• Some timelines are naturally more engaging than others
• Readers wanting traditional fantasy may find it too romance-focused
• The emotional intensity won’t work for everyone

Our Infinite Fates asks a question that sits at the heart of every great love story: if you knew it would end in heartbreak, would you do it anyway?

If you enjoy content on Uptown Oracle consider supporting us:
 Ko-fi  | PayPal