Borrowed Time

By: John Nolte

Narrated by: Jim Seybert

Joshua Mason is an everyday man cursed with immortality.

Joshua Mason has been alive for thousands of years. He doesn't know how or why it happened, only that he can die like any man, but will always return.

When you live forever, everything you love will die, so he decided long ago to not become attached. That all changed when he met Doreen. With her, he found something more than the woman he loves, after thousands of years of wandering, he found his place in the world. Now she's dying of old age. Distraught, Joshua promises to look after Charlie, Doreen's grandson, who is thirty-six, but forever a child due to a terrible brain injury.

Keeping Charlie safe means making money to keep Charlie's world—a crumbling motel in the middle of a barren desert—afloat. Mason makes this money by selling his life on the dark web to wealthy people who enjoy the ritual of murdering him.

And now, when Mason only wants to mourn the loss of his wife, he discovers he sold his life to some very dangerous people and that Charlie is not as innocent as he seems.

©2023 John Nolte (P)2023 Tantor

Best book I read in the past five years

This was the best book I read in the past five years. The story and characters were beyond what I had expected. I love mystery stories, but this one was so well thought out, I'm not even sure I can describe why it was riveting and a page-turner. I would find myself staying in my car in the driveway to finish a chapter because the story was so compelling. Congratulations to the author for a job well done.

Wild Ride

Your imagination will go on a wild Ride all the way to the end. So much fun.

Fascinating story line

Hard to get past the language and violence but kept listening because it was intriguing and was so well narrated. Glad I finished it!

Refreshingly New Fiction

It’s as if peak Stephen King meets Gaiman’s American Gods, without the thinly veiled political propaganda…. Great storytelling from a great writer.

Ambitious & Clever Story

Excellent first novel. Joshua Mason has lived for millennium. He never ages, never gets old. When he gets killed, he regenerates a new body. Themes of immortality vs. mortality, indulgence and responsibility. A page-turner mashup with hints of Flannery O’Conner, Chaucer’s Pardoners Tale, Washington Irving and Cormac McCarthy. Set in a backdrop of modern day self indulgence, the ever-reaching tentacles of the state, and the denizens of power, it is a back-handed critique of modern society. it is also an exceedingly ambitious and clever story. Bravo. While a bit crass and a bit choppy in the time-sequencing, it is still a worthwhile read.