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The Memory Painter

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Two lovers who have traveled across time, a team of scientists at the cutting edge of memory research—a miracle drug that unlocks an ancient mystery ...

Bryan Pierce is an internationally famous artist whose paintings have dazzled the world. But there's a secret to his success: every canvas is inspired by an unusually vivid dream. When Bryan awakes, he possesses extraordinary new skills—like the ability to speak obscure languages and an inexplicable genius for chess. All his life, he has wondered if his dreams are recollections, if he is re-experiencing other people's lives.

Linz Jacobs is a brilliant neurogeneticist, absorbed in decoding the genes that help the brain make memories, until she is confronted with an exact rendering of a recurring nightmare at one of Bryan's shows. She tracks down the elusive artist, and their meeting triggers Bryan's most powerful dream yet: visions of a team of scientists who, on the verge of discovering a cure for Alzheimer's, died in a lab explosion decades ago.

As Bryan becomes obsessed with the mysterious circumstances surrounding the scientists' deaths, his dreams begin to reveal what happened at the lab, as well as a deeper mystery that may lead all the way to ancient Egypt. Together, Bryan and Linz start to discern a pattern. But a deadly enemy watches their every move, and he will stop at nothing to ensure that the past stays buried.

A taut thriller and a timeless love story spanning six continents and ten thousand years of history, The Memory Painter is a riveting debut novel unlike any you've ever read.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 20, 2015
      In Womack's debut novel, protagonists Bryan, the memory painter of the title, and Linz, a neurogeneticist studying memory, meet by accident in an exhibit of ancient Egyptian art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They each discover that the other suffers from powerful dreams; Bryan's are the source of pictures he paints in the style of Jan van Eyck. As the plot lurches from one coincidence to the next, it becomes clear to Bryan that the dreams are related, and that he and Linz have known each other in past lives. Indeed, Bryan has been the ancient Roman priest Origenes Adamantius, Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, a Japanese samurai, a scientist in the 1980s who was on the brink of a breakthrough in Alzheimer's research, and van Eyck as well. As a result he can speak 30 languages, and when he falls in love with Linz he knows it's not the first time. Suffering from the excruciating dreams but gaining more and more knowledge, Bryan begins to suspect that Linz's father, the head of a powerful company called Medicor, is somehow complicit in an evil scheme that has lasted millennia. Bryan only has to wait for Linz's dreams to catch up with his for them somehow to save the world from a threat that began with the ancient Egyptians. The chapters recounting their past lives are chock full of interesting historical tidbits, but careening through them feels more like being on a movie-themed ride at Disneyland than reading a novel.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Bryan Pierce's vivid dreams inspire his internationally famous paintings and leave the reclusive painter with complete recall of the knowledge, talents, and languages of those he dreams about. When brilliant neurogeneticist Linz Jacobs sees a painting of her recurring childhood nightmare at one of his shows, she feels a strange attraction to the artist. Will Damron's sensitive narration captures the couple's unusual rapport, which leads them to discover past lives and loves. Damron uses a measured pace and tone to invoke a sense of mystery and suspense when Bryan's next powerful dream reveals a deadly enemy who watches them from the distant past. Damron's skilled narration results in a fascinating romance framed within a mystery that crosses the boundaries of time and space. G.D.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

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