The fifth Dimensional Alliance book, deep in the aunt’s journals and the passing of a torch. A tribute and a review.
Chords of Infinity, the fifth book in The Dimensional Alliance, continues the device Bonnie Dillabough introduced in the previous volume: as Jenny recuperates from her last battle with the Groga, she keeps reading the journals of her aunt Lizzie Japhet, the woman from whom she inherited the little house on Infinity Loop and all its secrets. The result is a book that moves between two lives, Jenny’s present recovery and Lizzie’s remembered adventures.
Within the journals, Jenny discovers the fast-paced story of her aunt as a young woman, a college student stepping into the same kind of wonder that would one day pass to Jenny herself. The book braids the generations together, letting the reader watch the multiverse through two pairs of eyes a lifetime apart.
Two timelines, one inheritance
The journal structure does graceful work here. By framing Lizzie’s adventures as something Jenny reads while healing, Bonnie ties the action of the past directly to the emotional life of the present, so that Lizzie’s story is never just a flashback but an inheritance Jenny is actively receiving. It is a warm, human way to handle a multi-generational saga, and it reflects something Bonnie valued deeply: the passing of a torch from one person to the next, the older guiding the younger without ever choosing for them.
In memory
A tribute to Bonnie Dillabough — the friend, mentor, and author behind The Dimensional Alliance, in her own story and mine.
The torch and the teller
It is hard not to see Bonnie in that theme. She spent her later years mentoring younger writers, breaking down the publishing process for the overwhelmed, passing her hard-won knowledge along without gatekeeping. A series whose middle books are built around a young woman learning from the journals of the aunt who came before her is, in a sense, a series about exactly what Bonnie did with her own time: hand the torch forward. The form and the life rhyme.
Keep reading
World-building across time: making a multiverse feel lived-in — the multi-generational scope that gives Bonnie’s universe its depth.
The mentor in the margins
The torch-passing at the heart of this book was not just a theme for Bonnie; it was how she lived. She mentored aspiring authors for no money and no recognition, because she remembered being lost in the maze of publishing and afraid to ask for help. She broke the self-publishing process down for people who were overwhelmed by it, gave straight answers wrapped in kindness, and refused to gatekeep creativity. She believed even editors need editors, even authors need help, that we have each other for a reason. A novel built around a younger woman receiving the hard-won knowledge of the woman before her is, read against Bonnie’s life, almost a self-portrait, not of her ego but of her generosity. She was always the one handing the journals forward.
This is one of the volumes Bonnie wrote in the steady stretch of her late-blooming career, building her nine-book arc one book at a time. The reading note: the series rewards being taken in order, and Chords of Infinity sits at the heart of the second trilogy, deep in Lizzie’s story. Read in sequence, it is where the two-generation structure pays its fullest dividends, the past and present finally close enough to touch, two women’s lives rhyming across the years that separate them, each discovering the same wonder in her own turn.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Chords of Infinity about?
The fifth book in The Dimensional Alliance. As Jenny recuperates from her battle with the Groga, she reads the journals of her aunt Lizzie Japhet, discovering Lizzie’s fast-paced adventures as a young college student, so the book moves between two timelines a generation apart.
Where does it fall in the series?
It is book five, sitting at the heart of the second trilogy, which uses Lizzie’s journals to braid the aunt’s past adventures with Jenny’s present recovery.
Do I need to read the earlier books first?
Yes. Chords of Infinity continues directly from the earlier volumes, especially the journal-reading frame introduced in book four, and it builds on the relationship between Jenny and her aunt Lizzie established across the series.
What is the journal device?
Jenny reads her aunt Lizzie’s journals while healing, so Lizzie’s remembered adventures are framed as an inheritance Jenny actively receives rather than a simple flashback, tying the past directly to the present’s emotional life.
Who was Bonnie Dillabough?
An author and mentor who began writing at sixty-three and completed eight Dimensional Alliance books before passing away in April 2025. She spent her later years passing her knowledge to younger writers. A tribute is linked on this page.
