The Soul Gene is about two young geneticists who discover that reincarnation is real.

Wow. That’s a huge subject to tackle. What’s the story?
Although the novel has an ensemble cast — including a private eye, a pedophile priest, the Dalai Lama, and dozens more — the two main characters are Bailey Foster and Susan Griffin. They’re lab partners at a small South Florida genetics company owned and run by a music major (Gwendolyn Bayner) whose dying parents left her the company.

Upon taking over the company, Gwendolyn proposes a number of strange projects, including a pill that will make everyone the same race and another that would prevent tooth decay. So when Gwendolyn’s teenage daughter announces that she’s a lesbian, it is not surprising that Gwendolyn enlists Foster and Griffin to find a cure for female homosexuality.

That’s a hot wire topic. Tell us more. What happens?
Griffin, who herself is gay, readily agrees. This stuns Foster, who argues that homosexuality is not an illness. Later, in private, she learns Griffin is fed up with Gwendolyn’s crazy projects and plans to ignore the lesbian project and secretly use the funds to study her passion: Junk DNA.

Griffin’s study of Junk DNA reveals a non-sequential sequence that appears to be unique for every living individual. The only time the sequence matches is between a living and dead person. Stumped as to what the sequence might be, she asks Foster.

Foster, a spiritual seeker who practices Buddhism, invokes Occam’s Razor and suggests the sequence is an identifier of some kind. To prove it, she proposes they obtain the DNA of the Dalai Lama and the corpses who Tibetan tradition says once held the Dalai Lama’s soul.

After a meeting with the Dalai Lama in Miami, Florida, Foster travels to Tibet, visits the Potala Palace, and surreptitiously gathers small bits of skin from the mummies entombed there. Not without difficulty, for the Chinese government objects to her intrusion, she brings the samples back to the lab and Griffin discovers the sequences match, which is evidence that reincarnation does, in fact, exist.

Wow, what impact does that discovery have?
The revelation has a dramatic positive impact on people around the world. Worried about their karma, people strive to be compassionate. Prisons empty and the buildings are used as schools. Wars end when people refuse to join the military.

That’s it, right? That’s the end of the story, in fact the end of all stories in a way.
Near the end of the story, Griffin, now in her 60s and president of the company, believes she has finally found a problem with the original computer code that identified the strange sequences. She is horrified that someone else will discover her error, but can not bring herself to reveal it herself, given the good the discovery has done.

In the end, Griffin’s inner turmoil and two bottles of wine prompt her to leap to her death. This horrifies her life-long friend, Foster, who agrees to take the reigns of the company and immediately begins looking for the reincarnated Susan Griffin, whom she finds on a small farm in Kansas.

Now four-years-old, the reincarnated Susan Griffin (Dot Hanford) recognizes Foster as someone she knew (and loved) in a past life, much as the children studied by Dr. Ian Stevenson recalled past lives.

The end of the novel features a surprise that ties back to the story’s beginning.

What genre is it?
Near-future science fiction. (No aliens, no space – or time-travel.)

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Spiritual seekers, genetics junkies, reincarnation adherents, Dalai Lama fans, Floridians.

What demographic – young adults?
Not really. There are three instances of pedophilia and some very graphic violence, including a dismemberment.

Have you written any other books that we should read next?
Not yet.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am a computer programmer who used to be a newspaper reporter, back when that was possible.

Do you have a website where we can keep up with your work?
http://www.lynndemarest.com

How can we follow you on Twitter and/or Facebook?
https://www.facebook.com/TheSoulGene

What’s next?
I’m working on several sequels, focusing on a single character from the first book, possibly Rocco Magnano, one of the three bad men who seek redemption after reading that reincarnation and karma are real.