First Impression:Books about immortals... how I love thee. Really, there have never been enough of these types of books for me to get my fill. So when one comes along, I have to read it.While Reading:The Alchemy of Forever is a weird but interesting take on immortality. The tale starts in the past with our MC, Sera, at a masked ball. Through some really weird events, she has been made an immortal. Many, many, many years later having tired of her life, Sera decides to take things into her own hands. Sounds like a good thing, right? Not exactly.The reason why... Cyrus. This guy is definitely has sociopath potential. But I am not completely sure why. Williams was, at times, very descriptive about certain characters, but never went into depth. Cyrus is described as being emotionally and physically abusive, yet I cannot recall one instance where this shined through. Maybe in a future installment, we will get to really see what he is capable of? I hope so.While part of me want to praise this book from the highest rooftop, the other half is really confused with this book. It felt rushed. Constantly moving from one thing to another. Never really focusing on one item long before rushing off to the next. In a lot of ways, I liked that. The story is constantly moving. Action. A little back story. More action. You get the point.Reading The Alchemy of Forever was a drastically short experience (I seriously read it in about an hour). And at the end, I just felt lost. Where was the rest of this book? Seriously, I loved everything building up to the ending, but nothing about this book ever felt completely fleshed out. Descriptions of what characters are suppose to be... but we never see this explored. There was no climax... none at all or at least that I could find. No big showdown. I seriously got to the last page and stopped short. I couldn't believe that the book ended that way. A little cliffhanger with little to no resolution. It took me a while to conclude that yes, the book was really over. It blew my mind for a few minutes (and not exactly in a good way). I was so shocked that I actually flipped through the book again to make sure that I had not some how skipped multiple chapters or something (I had not).Verdict:The Alchemy of Forever is a promising start to a series. Despite the rather shortness of it, I really enjoyed the experience as a whole. But I think I would have walked away a much happier reader if many, many things had been fleshed out. I wanted to know these characters. To go along on their journey. To understand Williams version of Alchemy. But it didn't pan out the way I wanted. Would I read it again? Actually, yes. Will I continue with the series? I hope so. And despited everything, I have really high hopes for this series.
