A Crack in the Line

Review also includes:

Small Eternities, ****, 978-1843628705

The frustration and fascination of the unchangeable past as we speculate ‘if only’ and ‘what if?’ are the bedrock of these first two parts of the ‘Aldous Lexicon’ trilogy where key moments of the past do produce alternatives. The death of 16-year-old Alaric’s mother in a train crash two years ago is the grey backdrop to his life at the crumbling house of Withern Rise until he is suddenly able to enter a world where his mother lives on in a well-cared for Withern Rise, maintaining a happy family life, although with a 16-year-old daughter, Naia. From the first switch of worlds, Alaric and Naia speculate on the causes, on the ingredients, trying to understand the triggers for the switch and wanting to control them. What maintains the excitement is the mix of control and unpredictability and then the sudden shift into other alternatives linked to earlier tragic deaths in the family and house history. By the end of the second book, the pace and intrigue remain high. There is still much that is teasingly unexplained and Naia and Alaric have become enmeshed in the sets of alternative worlds, better able to understand other points of view although not necessarily happy with the version they find themselves locked into and tantalizingly unable to control all that happens. The ideas are the fuel and while the books are sometimes a little top-heavy with them, at best they are haunting, full of sensation – the feeling of cold and wet and the ache of loss – made sharper by the glimpse of how it could have been so different.