You'd think that all of the parallel universe/alternate timelines stories had been told but Haig manages to create a new one with Nora Seed. We learn in the first story that one day, Nora will decide to take her own life. We get a few chapters of prelude where we discover that the once promising Nora (she was a champion swimmer, an intelligent child, and a gifted pianist and songwriter) has hit her nadir. But before she actually dies, she has a chance to experience many different lives. We don't know all of them but she is afforded this opportunity through a library of books with the many options of the way that her life might have been written. Would she have been an iceberg researcher? Or a famous rock star? Perhaps the mother of a small child. Or a writer in Paris. While we do not get to see all of the lives, they lead Nora to a (perhaps expected) conclusion that will shake the foundations of the library itself.
It took me awhile to get into this book but then I finished it in my second sitting. A new take on an old idea and Haig seeds just enough to create a connected series of books with perhaps other characters.
Four stars
This book came out September 29th, 2020
Book borrowed from Libby
Opinions are my own
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