INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS AVAILABLE NOW
The Seventh Life and The Seventh Embrace are now available in five international editions.
Choose English, Spanish or French, then select Kindle or paperback. Ten purchase options are live across Amazon marketplaces.
Amazon displays the current price, delivery options and availability for your location.
A connected cycle of novels by Ivan Lapčević
Seven baptisms. Stories of moments that shift a person's inner axis forever.
Novels about growing up, identity, belonging and the cost of choice. Each stands alone; if you read them in order, begin with The Seventh Life.
Books
Books I and III are available internationally on Amazon. Books II and IV remain in development.
AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON
Book I
Baptism by Fire
Pavle grows up in a mountain village in Yugoslavia. Hunger and poverty teach him to run before he knows where he is going. Basketball opens the world to him, but every success carries a new price—and the past finds him where he least expects it.
IN DEVELOPMENT · NOT YET ON SALE
Book II
Baptism by Earth
When an investigation destroys the world his father built, Adrien heads for the mountains convinced he knows who is to blame. Among strangers who carry what they cannot say, each new step strips away another alibi.
AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON
Book III
Baptism by Tears
Selena arrives in Barcelona believing that belonging can be earned through work, love and strength. But every refuge has its rules, and every voice that tells her who she is asks for something in return.
IN DEVELOPMENT · RELEASE DATE TO BE ANNOUNCED
Book IV
Baptism by the Void
“Fear is not what comes, but what remains when there is no one left to be afraid.”
The fourth novel in the cycle is currently in development. Its release date and ordering options will be announced later.
Available now
Five international editions are live. Each is available as a Kindle eBook and paperback—ten purchase options in total.
Book IBook I
Baptism by Fire
EnglishAmazon.com
EspañolAmazon.es
Book IIIBook III
Baptism by Tears
EnglishAmazon.com
FrançaisAmazon.fr
EspañolAmazon.es
Amazon sets the final price, tax, delivery and availability according to the reader’s location and selected marketplace.
Visual identity
The latest cover designs for the first four novels, shown here in their original Serbian editions.
What is 7SAGA?
7SAGA is a cycle of interconnected novels by Ivan Lapčević. Each book follows a person at the moment when the foundations that once sustained them are no longer enough. Within the cycle, those experiences are called baptisms.
The novels have different protagonists and can be read separately. Reading them in order reveals connections that remain in the background of each individual story.
Original excerpts · From the author's master files
A birth beneath the snow. A man appearing across the street. A house a girl first builds in pencil. Each scene opens a question the novel carries deeper.
YUGOSLAVIA, 1974 — a village beneath Mount Kopaonik
The screams struck the walls of the hut. Vera twisted on the wet straw, tearing at an old shirt as she labored for hours to push the child from her body. Her palms searched for purchase on the frozen earth, while the cold crept through the boards and clung to her back.
Outside, the snow fell thick. Zoran stood behind the door in the darkness, his arms at his sides. He breathed shallowly and listened to what was happening within.
At another scream, Zoran moved to the window. The plastic sheet trembled in the wind, and through its cloudy surface he saw a silhouette fold and rise again.
· · ·
The pain dragged her back to the straw.
— Take me. Spare him — she said through clenched teeth.
Another spasm tore through her body. For a moment there was silence. Then the child cried, sharp and thin. Vera drew him to her chest.
“My son.”
The next time his mother called, it was almost evening.
— I called you yesterday.
— I was out.
— Where?
He walked to the window. The street still held the day's heat. A delivery van threaded between parked cars, followed by the brief ring of a bicycle bell.
The metal box above the rear wheel entered his view first. Then a narrow back bent over the handlebars, and a shoulder dropping with every hard push on the pedal.
The man he had sent Votren to find.
Jean passed beneath his window, crossed the street and stopped before the gray shutter opposite the only address Adrien had left. He took a key from his pocket.
As Adrien pulled on his shoes, one foot remained bare. He went back into the hall for the other shoe, then headed downstairs carrying it in his hand.
The shutter across the street was already down. He walked past it, returned to the intersection and checked the number above his own entrance.
“Eighty-four.”
After that night, the lamp burned on the table more and more often. The pencil grew shorter. The eraser wore away. The bin filled with crumpled sheets of paper.
At last, the line lay straight.
When spring finally softened the earth, the pencil moved easily across the paper. I drew a long, unbroken line through the very center of the page. The horizon.
Below the horizon I drew the sharp, dense waves of a sea I had never seen. Above the line, a house rose: secure walls, a pitched roof, a broad terrace with a sturdy railing, and steps leading straight down to the water.
Then I moved to the lower right corner. I drew two tiny figures. A boy and a girl. Behind them I sketched two taller silhouettes. Myself and a tall male figure. His head was only an outline.
Beneath him I drew two joined hands. Finally I pressed down on the pencil. Its sharp point pierced the top sheet and left a mark on the page below.
I set the pencil beside the notebook. The kerosene flame trembled.
“The house on the page remained whole.”
The texts are drawn from the author's master files. The scene from The Seventh Life has been editorially shortened for screen reading; the other two excerpts preserve the rhythm of the manuscripts.
The Seventh Life · Announcement trailer
The announcement trailer for the first novel is available in English.
Watch on YouTube7SAGA in motion
Enter the world of The Seventh Life through a short story reel, witness Pavle's first steps, then open the novel's first page on Kindle.
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