I’ve met Susan May (the author) so was a little worried about reading this novel in case I didn’t like it. “What would I say?” I wondered.

Well, there was no danger of that because I really enjoyed her new self-published novel Back Again.  I was pretty much hooked from the beginning – the concept of the ‘do-over’ (or indeed an alternative reality) is of interest to me and I’ve written about it a little before in my blog.

We learn that Dawn experiences fugue states and when she comes out of these states time has passed and – on occasion – events leading up to her ‘turn’ (to quote Dawn’s mother!) have changed. So when Dawn’s only son is killed she can only hope she has the opportunity to re-live the moment and change fate. But obviously it doesn’t work like that and it seems that she may be forced to constantly re-live her son’s death and the days following, again and again.

The strength of the novel for me was in the plot itself and the hypothetical question of whether we can try to change fate and – whether we SHOULD? (The whole butterfly effect thing!)

I was a bit interested in Dawn’s fugue states and wondered what happened to her during them. I gathered she’s reliving events from the past while in those states, but found myself wondering where ‘she’ went. Physically? (After the dog / park incident as a child for example.)

This is a great read and will have you pondering the concept of fate and amount of control we have over our beliefs, actions and indeed our lives.

Back Again by Susan May is currently available from Amazon and Susan’s own site.

I received a copy of this novel from the author for review purposes.