A novel by Kate Atkinson is an item I don't hesitate to download to my Kindle. I was hoping this would be another Jackson Brown detective novel, but instead it was a time-shifting novel, so I found it a ittle hard to get into, but I have such devotion to this author's writing that I kept reading, and was very glad I did. I didn't know what was happening occasionally, because of the time shifting, but that's the way life is, after all.
I'm quoting from the book desription on Kindle:
"What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you got it right?
During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can draw her first breath.
During the same snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.
This is Ursula Todd, and her story of life after many deaths - a loop of lives, or the continuous circle of destiny - life after life after life."
The narrative unfolds around historical events in England from World War I through World War II - and Ursula's role in them. Especially interesting was her life as a warden throughout the Blitz of London - I had a little more trouble with her friendship with Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, probably because of the way the reader is just airlifted, it seems, into the centre of the story. But the book is well-written, and could probably bear another reading, if only to dissect her structure - it was extremely inventive - nearly every chapter is a new year, say 1910, then 1936, then 1926, and so on. Events in one section are seen from a different angle in another section, or in another year. It sounds tremendously complex, but Atkinson, a Scottish writer by the way, handles it very well.
Strongly recommended!
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