From the moment I started reading those ‘create your own story’ books as a child, I’ve loved a story with a different ending, or at least the possibility of a different ending because I like to be taken by surprise. Having spent years as a magazine journalist interviewing people about their lives, I knew I wanted to write stories about people, because people are fascinating and surprising. My fascination with people and time travel also probably explains why my debut novel, Before You Go, had both of those elements in them – and when I find a book that bends convention a little – or a lot – I’ll shout about it from the rooftops!
I’ve always been drawn to time travel stories – Back To The Future is my favourite film of all time, and it’s also why my debut, had a large dollop of time travel in it.
The Time Traveler’s Wife tells the story of Henry and Clare whose love story is doomed from the start – Henry inadvertently travels through time, and only meets Clare at certain points in her life. I’m fascinated not only by the idea of time travel, but also by the idea that love can conquer anything – even not being in the same time.
A huge, all-encompassing story that totally captured my heart and was, for me, written with poignancy and flair.
Now a series on HBO starring Rose Leslie and Theo James!
The iconic time travel love story and mega-bestselling first novel from Audrey Niffenegger is "a soaring celebration of the victory of love over time" (Chicago Tribune).
Henry DeTamble is a dashing, adventurous librarian who is at the mercy of his random time time-traveling abilities. Clare Abshire is an artist whose life moves through a natural sequential course. This is the celebrated and timeless tale of their love. Henry and Clare's passionate affair is built and endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap…
I read this book last year and adored it from the moment it began.
I knew straight away it was going to be something special when I realised there was something unusual about Nick and Bee’s relationship – and oh my!
Without giving too much away (trust me, it will spoil it!), it allows you to instantly suspend your disbelief and be swept up into the love story that you know, in your brain, can’t possibly exist, but which your heart desperately wants you to believe.
I read it in a day because I simply couldn’t put it down, and recommend it to everyone I see – and no book can come more recommended than that!
This has such a clever premise – a man who can’t let himself get close to anyone because every time he does, he dreams about how they’re going to die and when.
And then he meets Callie, and he does everything he can not to fall in love with her... except he can’t help himself. And then he dreams about her death...
THE RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 'Unique and breathtaking and painful and broken and perfect . . . just like love' Jodi Picoult 'Exquisitely written, incredibly moving and impossible to put down' Beth O'Leary, author of The Flatshare ___________
Joel is afraid of the future. Since he was a child he's been haunted by dreams about the people he loves. Visions of what's going to happen - the good and the bad. And the only way to prevent them is to never let anyone close to him again.
Callie can't let go of the past. Since her best friend…
Remember those stories you used to read a kid, where you could choose which way the story went next, and choose your own ending?
I was never the kid who could just make a decision and see where the story went – I always had to read all the different options to see what might have happened.
That's why this book appealed, because you get to see how both choices worked out. And then it surprises you all over again
'A writer the world should be reading right now.' Independent
Who would you be, if you hadn't turned out to be the person you are now?
Dawn is a death doula, and spends her life helping people make the final transition peacefully.
But when the plane she's on plummets, she finds herself thinking not of the perfect life she has, but the life she was forced to abandon fifteen years ago - when she left behind a career in Egyptology, and a man she loved.
Against the odds, she survives, and the airline offers her a ticket to wherever she…
This is a love story with a real twist – because it starts with an older couple splitting up, and then works backwards to find out why.
You’ve probably realised by now that I love a love story that plays with convention, and sets itself apart from the straight-forward girl-meets-boy, and this definitely did that.
It could have been confusing, but it was brilliantly written and honestly one of the best love stories I’ve ever read, with one of the most satisfying endings.
A poignant, surprising love story told backwards over five decades, with a devastating secret at its heart.
Robbie and Emily they have been together for decades. Now, their joints are creaking and their eyesight is failing - but their love for each other is as fresh and fierce as the day they first met. They have had children and grandchildren, lived full and happy and intimate lives.
But they have been keeping a secret since the day they met, when their lives changed forever. Over the years, the sacrifices and choices they made have sealed their fates together.
Greg fell in love with Erin in their first week at university. Solid, trustworthy and hopelessly devoted to Erin, he knows he's better for her than the feckless Adam, who is forever leaving Erin broken-hearted, before winning her back with his charm. As far as Greg is concerned, it’s easy to promise the world, but it’s harder to love someone for a lifetime.
Years later Greg and Erin are married, and although life hasn’t always been easy, Greg’s love for Erin has never dimmed. But when Adam comes back, in desperate need of Erin's help, everything changes. Erin starts to wonder whether fate is trying to tell her something… Will Erin risk it all for the man she had thought was ‘The One’?
Willem and Jurriaan have a miserable childhood thanks to their cruel, controlling mother—Louisa Veldkamp, a world-renowned pianist. Dad turns a blind eye. One day, Louisa vanishes without a trace during a family vacation.
Adoptee Anneliese Bakker survives a toxic childhood and leaves home, vowing never to return. While searching for her biological mother, she meets the adult Willem, and they fall in love. Pregnant and engaged, she moves into the family mansion, wanting nothing more than to create a loving family for her child. But the Veldkamps are cold and distant. And why is Louisa a taboo subject?
An expectant mother gets more than she bargained for when she marries into a seemingly perfect family in this gripping debut novel–a must read for fans of A. J. Finn and B. A. Paris.
After surviving a nightmarish childhood, Anneliese Bakker is on the mend and searching for her birth mother. But when she meets Willem, she falls madly in love and finally finds a safe place to land. Engaged and expecting her first child, she moves into the Veldkamp mansion on a stately, tree-lined avenue in Amsterdam. And yet, nothing about Willem’s family is as it seems. Instead of…
