Rating: 4 out of 5

An enjoyable and well-written story following a series of parallel existences. “What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale”.

The main characters are well written, and the different choices made, or situations lived through, are all explored with good, rich, descriptions.

A good book to read in chunks, and get absorbed in, rather than just reading a few pages at a time.

Highlighted passages:

Doctors for women should all be women themselves. Little chance of that.

All the women of the household now spent an inordinate amount of time knitting - mufflers and mittens, gloves and socks and hats, vests and sweaters - to keep their men warm.

She glanced at Sylvie, serenely wefting and warping her little woollen patch on the hole in the toe of one of Teddy’s socks.

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn’t even begin to solve.

‘Home’, it had struck her on the torturous drive back to London, wasn’t Egerton Gardens, wasn’t even Fox Corner. Home was an idea, and like Arcadia it was lost in the past.

Elizabeth I. Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.

All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good women to do nothing.

“You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.”’

The war went on and on.

‘What if we had a chance to do it again and again,’ Teddy said, ‘until we finally did get it right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?’

Life wasn’t about becoming, was it? It was about being.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account