Library Journal
★ 02/15/2015
With her freshly painted sunny yellow bedroom in 1962 Denver, Kitty Miller leads a content if solitary life. Running a bookshop with her best friend, Frieda, is a welcome break from teaching school. Everything about Kitty's life seems benignly commonplace until she begins waking up in another bedroom, in another life: a life in which she is another version of herself. She wakes up as Katharyn Andersson in 1963 Denver, married to Lars, a man who had answered a personal ad 1962 Kitty Miller had placed—but 1962 Lars never showed up for their date. Katharyn and Lars have three children and move in a sphere Kitty doesn't know about. As Kitty investigates the two worlds of Katharyn and Kitty, she sees parallels and choices, trade-offs and sacrifices. VERDICT This is a stunner of a debut novel, astonishingly tight and fast paced. The 1960s tone is elegant and even, and Kitty/Katharyn's journey is intriguing, redolent with issues of family, independence, friendship, and free will. This will especially resonate with fans of the movie Sliding Doors and the authors Anna Quindlen and Anita Shreve. [See Prepub Alert, 9/15/14.]—Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA