This book starts out with what looks like three completely separate plotlines. Eventually these merge together to form one story, but I found this pretty disappointing. I was pulled out of the book quite a lot with the author attempting a little too much and hoping for too much suspension of disbelief. It was an interesting choice, but not one I'll go back to.

Rich, complex and interesting. Great characters and a story to keep you up and reading for the evening.

Meriel’s The Unity Game is a complex story, full of philosophical and spiritual threads, that weaves through time and space. It is a story that epitomises Cicero's quote about connectivity-

“Everything is alive; everything is interconnected.”
~Cicero

First there is David, the big shot in New York, driving himself into the ground to earn the big bucks. Then there's the Scottish lawyer, Alisdair, whose musings lean towards what comes after we pass from our mortal coil. Last of the three big threads is Nooe-bouk. Call him a sort of xenoanthropologist, if you will.

This is a book to make you think. To make you take time out to ponder the greater mysteries of life. That being said, I didn't like David at all. His mentality grated on my nerves. I liked Alisdair, but my most favourite was Nooe-bouk, with his unique perspective. I should also add that I adore the cover!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Unity Game starts as three disparate storylines, each marked by a different symbol: David, a New York banker (a cube); Alisdair, a newly-deceased law scholar, and his living granddaughter Elspeth (a many-pointed star); and Noœ-bouk, an alien being from a very different civilization than our own (a circle). The story both is and isn't as complicated as that makes it seem; the symbols help keep track of which story is being told when and for at least the first half of the book, everything is pretty linear, but this is still a book that requires some effort on the part of the reader.

This book definitely kept me wanting to know where it was going and how it was going to get there, enough that I didn't put it down except when I absolutely had to (a girl's gotta sleep!). That said, I'm not entirely sure my suspension of disbelief held up as well as the author was aiming for; there were a few things that jarred me out of the world a bit. I did love the Noœ-bouk thread of the story, despite its being the most 'strange' (it was literally alien). It was well-developed and poignant, and I almost wished different characters had been chosen for the other two threads of story so I could love the book as a whole.

Overall it was an interesting read and I don't regret spending time on it, but it isn't a book I'm going to come back to; I'd only recommend it if you're willing to to take a little risk in your reading material. I definitely won't rule out reading other books by this author, though.