Reviewed by Karen Pirnot for Readers' Favorite

Author Martin Lewis offers the reader a fantasy delight in Parallel Lives. Richard Jones is a pathologist who is recently divorced and has just lost his job. He is contemplating taking his own life when a double appears to him from a parallel universe, telling him there is more to his life than appears. Richard names the twin Historian, as the man is a professor at Oxford, a career that Richard had thought of for himself at one time. Rich is shocked when he takes a trip from his universe to discover that two other aspects of himself exist. One part is named Singer and the other Missionary, both careers which Richard contemplated in his younger years.

As the story progresses, Richard elects to travel to London where he meets a girl who captivates his heart. He is elated when offered a job with the World Health Organization, which involves travel back to Africa where he once left a piece of his heart. In order to survive, Richard will need all the parts of himself in order to put forth an integrated bid for survival.

This story will be intriguing to anyone who contemplates what he or she "might have been" had a different path been taken in life. The author writes with a great deal of understanding of the human condition. There is much food for thought in this story. By the end of the book, the reader just might get an inkling to go out and explore a nagging "what if" for him/herself!