The Qaraq and the Maya Factor - 1001, The Reincarnation Chronicles 2
Formats: E-Book, Paperback
Ages: 12-15, 16-18, 18+
After the events of The Qaraq, passionate Arabic scholar Sahara Fleming embraces the truth: she and her qaraq, a group of intertwined souls, have lived countless past lives together. But now, their gift of extraordinary memory is slipping away.
A force known as the Maya Factor—a Hindu concept that traps people in illusion and trivial distractions — shatters the qaraq's ability to recall their shared reincarnations. As their connection weakens, Sahara faces another unsettling challenge: her estranged husband's relentless attempts to win her back. Their chemistry is undeniable, yet their past-life stories hint at something far darker beneath their romance.
When the qaraq uncovers eerie links between ancient tombs, a mysterious Red Isle, and a seventeenth-century coven, they must ask themselves: Are they unraveling a grand design that has shaped their lives for centuries? Or are they merely trapped in another layer of Maya — an illusion that could tear them apart?
Structured like a modern Arabian Nights, The Qaraq and the Maya Factor—Book Two of 1001, The Reincarnation Chronicles—delivers a visionary blend of inventive fantasy, historical mystery, and whimsical mysticism. Step into this wildly imaginative series by Stephen Weinstock, whose own musical past life helps shape this symphonic epic.
Reviews
Stephen Weinstock's imagination is fevered, surreal, fantastical. It will take you places you never dreamed you would go.
Stephen Weinstock’s The Qaraq and the Maya Factor is an imaginative, layered continuation of The Reincarnation Chronicles—a series that fuses philosophy, fantasy, and history into a dazzling exploration of human connection across lifetimes. In this second installment, Arabic scholar Sahara Fleming and her qaraq—souls bound through countless reincarnations—struggle against the disorienting pull of the Maya Factor, a force that clouds memory and traps humanity in illusion. Weinstock’s storytelling is rich and immersive, blending myth, mysticism, and modern emotion with the rhythm of a symphony. The narrative moves fluidly between lifetimes, settings, and states of consciousness, offering both a deeply human story and a metaphysical adventure. It’s a visionary journey through time, love, and the mystery of the soul—perfect for readers who crave fantasy that makes them think as much as it enchants.
Inspired by The Thousand and One Nights, Weinstock’s second book of an eleven-volume series is the retelling of past lives that have criss-crossed over centuries, stories shared by Sahara’s “qaraq” or companions of her 1001 life cycles. In this volume, the characters have lived in many forms, including a lovesick merman, a drifting seed, frolicking dogs and, among other things, a horny glacier. His book is written in an amusing tone, sometimes leaping into stream-of-consciousness—purely lyrical one minute and street-wise the next. Physics, metaphysics, mythology, and fabulism slip into and out of each other as easily as the characters slip into and out of each others’ beds. Erotically charged, funny, and imaginative, it is a New Age-ey version of magical realism. It’s as detailed and time-spanning as Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and shares similar notes of psychedelic, witty, mind-boggling, surrealism.
