Ever since watching Sliding Doors back in the late 90s, I’ve been fascinated by forking narratives. I don’t know if I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t love that “what-if” spark–what if I chose this job over that one? Who would I have met? Who would I have married? Who would I be? That last question, I believe, is the kicker–we all only get to live this one life, so our choices are our choices. Only in the realm of fiction can we really be in someone else’s head, and writing my fifth novel, Lines, and its twinned/entwined plots was doubling the fun.
This was the first Sliding Doors-esque novel I read, and it’s a doozy. The book spins off a single moment: will Irina kiss Ramsey, the professional pool player? That action forks the novel into two distinct threads, but there are constant pleasant echoes that reverberate back and forth.
I’ve always believed the greatest draw for reading fiction is that we get to live someone else’s life. In a split narrative, we get to do that twice! Two for the price of one.
From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, this is the novel Lionel Shriver wrote directly afterwards. The Post-Birthday World is an unflinching account of the choices that unfold before us and what our decisions really mean.
Irina McGovern's destiny hinges on a single kiss. Whether she gives into its temptation will determine whether she stays with her reliable partner Lawrence, or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player.
Employing a parallel universe structure, Shriver spins Irina's competing futures with two drastically different men. An intellectual and fellow American, Lawrence is clever and supportive,…
This book is categorized as a young adult novel, but I read it as a fully grown adult and was able to snap right into my angsty teenage years.
This book gives the protagonist, Ephraim, a good amount of agency, as it’s the flip of a coin that fulfills his desires–basically, it’s a wishing well. But the different versions of his life that spring forth are what makes this story intriguing and often quite moving.
The coin changed Ephraim's life. But how can he change it back?
Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she'd identified Ephraim's body at the hospital that day.
Among his dead double's belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin--a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he's…
Not satisfied with two possibilities, Laura Barnett wrote three! She labels them as such–Versions One (they meet and marry), Two (they don’t meet until years later), and Three (they get together but break up), of Eva the writer and Jim the painter.
The chapters are very short, almost vignette-like, but this is a case where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Through a collage-like accretion, I came to adore this love story that spans almost sixty years.
A #1 UK bestseller, The Versions of Us is a dazzling novel about the ways the smallest decisions give shape to our lives, charting a single relationship through three possible futures.
What if you had said yes? Some moments can change your life forever. Have you ever wondered, what if . . .?
A man is walking down a country lane. A woman, cycling toward him, swerves to avoid a dog. On that moment, their future hinges. There are three possible outcomes, three small decisions that could determine the rest of their life.
This book is the funniest of the lot here, and it’s got a great hook: Lauren comes home and finds a guy who says he’s her husband, but she’s not married! And then he goes up to the attic…and another man takes his place, and Lauren’s world is also slightly altered.
This happens over and over again, often to comedic effect. Her journey towards finding the right guy ultimately makes this book special.
'One of the funniest debuts for years' SUNDAY TIMES 'The most fun I've had reading in the longest time' MARIAN KEYES 'An absolute riot' THE UNMUMSY MUM
You wait ages for The One . . . then 203 come along at once
One night Lauren finds a strange man in her flat who claims to be her husband. All the evidence - from photos to electricity bills - suggests he's right.
Lauren's attic, she slowly realises, is creating an endless supply of husbands for her.
There's the one who pretends to play music on her toes. The one who's too…
If you are of a certain age, you may remember Choose Your Own Adventure novels, where you read an enticing setup of a story, and then you are asked to choose–go to page xx for this action or page yy for this other action. These books were often adventure or mystery tales, and they were fairly short.
Well, this author took this concept to new heights–she wrote over 150 different endings. All written in the second person, in this book, you can fall madly in love as well as die tragically, so caveat emptor!
There are hundreds of lives sown inside Pretty Little Mistakes, Heather McElhatton's singularly spectacular, breathtakingly unique novel that has more than 150 possible endings. You may end up in an opulent mansion or homeless down by the river; happily married with your own corporation or alone and pecked to death by ducks in London; a Zen master in Japan or morbidly obese in a trailer park.
Is it destiny or decision that controls our fate? You can't change your past and start over from scratch in real life—but in Pretty Little Mistakes, you can! But be warned, choose wisely.
On a foggy morning in New York City, a man and a woman run into each other, literally. The man, a writer, invites the woman, an artist, for coffee. They married just two months later. And four years later, their marriage is crumbling. On a foggy morning in New York City, the same man and woman pass through the fog, oblivious of each other’s existence. Five years later, the writer finds a painted locket no bigger than his thumbnail.
My book is about possibilities, about our choices. It’s a love story and a tragedy. It’s about Josh and Abby and their intertwined lives, together and apart, through births, deaths, and the beautiful mess in between.
A fractured mind or a global conspiracy? Uncovering the truth can be hell when nobody believes you… and you can’t even trust yourself.
"A fantastic science fiction thriller with a sincere and important message.”—Kirkus Reviews.
“A breathtaking, deeply dark alternate-history Earth with complex characters, layered worldbuilding, and twist after twist after twist.”—Julianna Caro, Reedsy Discovery.
Broken Mirror is the first volume in a queer psychological science fiction saga that looks at the stigma of mental illness and the hellish distrust and alienation that goes with it.
Broken Mirror: the start of a smart, complex, and imaginative cyberpunk alternate history saga. Literary science fiction from a fresh, young voice.
In a skewed mirror universe, a mentally ill young man searches for his grandfather’s killer.
Someone killed Jefferson Eastmore. His grandson Victor is sure of it, but no one believes him.
Diagnosed with mirror resonance syndrome and shunned by Semiautonomous California society, Victor suffers from hyperempathy, blank outs, and sensory overload. Jefferson devoted his life to researching mental illness and curing Broken Mirrors like Victor through genetic engineering, but now that he’s gone, Victor must walk a narrow…
