Thank you to Netgalley and HQ for an advanced copy of this book.

I very much enjoyed this and read it all on a rainy and chilly Sunday, it is splendidly written and the perfect read for a day like that.

I think the best way to go in to this book is with as little information as possible and that is why I shall not include a synopsis/overview of the story because I would hate to take any of the joy from a future reader. I will say this, if you read Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life and felt there was something lacking then this is the book for you (also if you enjoy Life After Life you will like this).

I look forward to reading more from Rudd in the future – definitely one to keep an eye out for.

The premise is intriguing: Lauren dies several times and we see different versions of her life and the lives of her family played out. But Lauren has the ability to peek into those different worlds, and gradually they start to merge.
The first two-thirds of the novel flipped between Lauren’s different lives and stories. I didn’t find the characters wholly three-dimensional and the writing was sometimes a little jarring: a bit ‘once upon a time’.
But as the book went on, it grew on me and I really enjoyed the last third. I started to feel for the characters and the mystery of the neighbour’s disappearance - the connection between Lauren’s worlds - began to be solved.
So I did find it a game of two halves (or three thirds!) but I would recommend it as it’s original and clever and I think it will really work best for readers who like their novels very plot-driven.

What a great book! I am always drawn to stories about the different ways life can pan out if different choices are made, but this is a much cleverer idea, which works brilliantly. Lauren is a very sympathetic character, but all the people in the story are believable and I really cared about what happened to them all. And I am still chuckling about Schrodinger's Rabbit!

An amazing book that keeps you guessing all the way through. Thanks to netgalley and the author for allowing me to read it.

A strange but intriguing read.

Lauren is introduced to us as a girl growing up in a tight-knit community, in a more carefree time before the internet and mobile phones. Her life is idyllic until she dies......... Even though I knew from the title that was going to happen, it still threw me as I was loving reading about her childhood.

As I read this book I was thinking of the film sliding doors, that I believe was on the basis of one action takes life a different direction. There's a more scientific idea behind this book and the story it creates.

I enjoyed following the different variations of Lauren and her family.

One line that stuck with me is someone asking her 'whats a cat!'

3.75 strange and intriguing stars

Brilliant and lovely. One of my favourite books of the year so far.

I read The First Time Lauren Pailing Died in a single enormous sitting because I simply couldn't put it down. Every one of the parallel lives was fascinating in its own way and kept me reading. I loved the concept of the mysterious beams that only Lauren could see, windows into other lives, and I found it utterly convincing. Some things change from world to world, often quite fundamental things; but some things stay the same.

Alyson Rudd has a gift for making you care about her characters. I wanted Lauren to be happy, but likewise all the different variants of the people whose lives she touched and left behind. A profoundly moving book, full of grief and loss, yet at the same time glowing with hope. Highly recommended.

As a child, Lauren sees strange lights, like sunbeams, that show her pictures of her family - but different. She draws what she sees, using art to understand the world as she grows up. Then she dies, and wakes up in one of those different pictures, having to make sense of a subtly different world.

There are several different threads to this, which sound confusing to describe, but aren't when reading the book! One thread follows her mother, as she deals with her grief and eventually has another child. Another follows her father, in a thread where her mother cannot cope with her grief. Lauren's own story continues, and eventually so does that of the world in which she dies for the second time. It's a fascinating picture of who Lauren became in two different possibilities of grown-up Lauren (and she's an appealing character) as well as how families deal with grief. One consistent thread is the disappearance of Peter Stanning, her father's boss - it has implications throughout the story for how each of the characters comes to understand their current situation. I also liked the subtle differences between worlds - one has no cats, and Lauren has to draw one to explain what they are, other differences are lightly touched on in characters' conversations.

I really enjoyed this, and would definitely recommend it! Thanks to NetGalley.

Many thanks to Net Galley and the publisher at HQ UK for giving me the chance to read and review this book in advance of its publication in exchange for an honest review!

For me, this was a fresh, original piece of writing, and my experience reading it was thoughtful and joyful.

Right from the beginning, in the 1960’s, Lauren is an intriguing girl. We watch her growing up and we see her mesmerised by her ‘sunbeams’, her own secret, though one that seems to find its way into her drawings and paintings. She is an interesting character, even more so when she dies and reawakens in a ‘new life’.

The story alternates often between the different characters in the multiple worlds, but despite this it is extremely easy to follow, and not once was I confused at what was happening in each. Aside from the differences in Lauren’s life and the lives of her family members, there are subtle changes in the worlds themselves too. One has a female president in the 1990s, but Britain has never had a female Prime Minister. Another has extremely slow-boiling kettles and cats don’t exist. Life is a little less colourful, less bright. These small details are woven nicely into the story, padding out the different worlds and making them more distinguishable for the reader.

Though we follow Lauren herself through her various lives – jobs, boyfriends, husbands, children, deaths – we also follow her family members, and the ways in which they deal with their grief. In this, the story is made more poignant, more touching, than if we were simply to follow Lauren. I really enjoyed learning about Bob and Vera’s fates in the lives where Lauren has died, as well as the ones in which she lives. They are all wonderful characters, and though their lives are mostly very middle-class and seemingly idyllic in most ways, I enjoyed reading about them.

The way in which Alyson Rudd has managed to bring the different lives together through the mystery of Peter Stanning is smart. His story doesn’t take precedent over Lauren’s at all, but rather runs alongside it. At first it is almost unimportant, but as more parallel lives come into play, so begins an investigation into Peter and what may have happened to him. It all concludes very nicely at the end, in a very satisfying way.

To conclude:
The writing is lovely. It is extremely readable, almost like the author is chatting with you. It’s very cleverly done, and kept me at once entertained, and enthralled in the storylines. I really loved Lauren – she is so likeable. The grief of her family is felt by the reader too because you quickly get to know and love her too. Overall, it is a touching exploration of grief, loss, and love, is an interesting and beautiful read, and I would recommend it to anyone after something a little bit different, a little bit magical.

I was completely mesmerised and absorbed by this novel and devoured it in a couple of days. It wasn’t just the story of Lauren and her parallel lives but it was also the story of those that loved her and grieved. Not sad, not mawkish but for me uplifting and truly beautiful.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher.

This is my kind of book. I have read several of these alternative lives / timeslip novels and I thought this was a very good example of the genre. It is beautifully writen and there is a tinge of sadness and regret running through it. I did get a little confused when the chapters changed and had to remind myself who some of the charactes were. I think I may have to read it again to fully appreciate the theads. I liked Lauren as a character and also her parents in their various incarnations. Ron's character was more developed in the chapters without Vera. I did like some of the versions better than others - I preferred Lauren in her Tim days to her Simon days, and was sorry to see Luke written out. The hints of changes in the parallel worlds, kettles, cats, Prime ministers etc. were subtly done. The thread of Peter held it together and the ending explained it satisfactorily.

Lauren Pailing is 13 when she dies in a tragic accident, yet she awakens as Lauren in a very slightly different setting where she needs to get used to her new reality. All along, Lauren has had the unsettling ability to see images that others can’t, that we learn are parallel realities.

With the continuation of Lauren’s new story, the reader also follows the impact of Lauren’s death on those close to her in the first reality… and then it happens again. The only unchanging constant between her stories is the disappearance of Peter Stanning – can finding the answer to his disappearance help Lauren to resolve her own life?

Reminiscent of Sliding Doors, or Kate Atkinson’s ‘Life After Life’, although not novel in its premise of chaos theory / parallel universes, this is intriguing with a wealth of interesting characters; a highly enjoyable read.

** spoiler alert ** I enjoyed the style of writing,it felt almost chatty,and so the first part of the book,Laurens life up till 13 felt like a catch up with a friend.
Then she dies.
The style of writing didn't change,but obviously the story did.
Luckily it wasn't a book with huge cast of characters that you struggle to keep up with,just family,a few husbands,and one missing guy and his family.
I was pleased there was an ending to Peters story.
It took till fairly near the end for Lauren to do some investigating on her other lives,and not really sure for me that added to the book.
Overall it was Enjoyable,and definitely one I'll tell others about.

Lauren is able to see beams of light which no-one else can. When she looks into the beams of light, she can see glimpses of alternate universes. The book follows Lauren and her parents as her life splits into divergent paths after an accident.

I enjoyed the book and liked the characters as they were written. I've read a few other stories in this genre and this one is not bad - it's more Sliding Doors than Kate Atkinson's Life After Life but very readable.

An enjoyable read, really beautiful prose. Bears a lot of resemblance to other time travel type books, and is likely to be linked to them, but worth a read for fans of the genre.

I absolutely loved this book. I'm a great fan of the "what if?" stories and parallel universes etc. and this one covered those well. All of the timelines were interesting to me but the best thing was they were all so different. Highly recommended.

Lauren Pailing lives her life intrigued by metallic slices like sunbeams. Through these she catches glimpses of other worlds, some familiar, some not. For example, she sees varying versions of her mother, her house and her family.

This is how Alyson Rudd takes on the challenge of an ‘other worlds’ narrative. Lauren herself is a likeable character who is easy for the reader to bond with, and this type of story is irresistible to us all. After all, if we were brave enough to ask that person on a date, if we’d got pregnant at a young age, if we’d indulged ourselves in risky behaviour... we all wonder how our lives would be different.

Lauren dies tragically aged 13, and Rudd weaves an increasingly complex web detailing the subsequent life she falls into and the lives of her parents and family.

Although confusing sometimes - naturally the timescales and narrative perspectives jump rather frequently - Rudd pulls together the various strands of the novel skilfully. Lauren’s own story is weaved around that of her father’s boss, Peter, who is missing in all three of her lives.

I’d definitely recommend this novel as an engaging and thought provoking read.

There have been quite a few books recently about either reliving your life or about parallel lives and universes. For me, the modern classic of this sub-genre is Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, but The Version of Us, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August all also jump to mind. To a greater or lesser degree, I’ve enjoyed all those books, so even if the premise of The First Time Lauren Pailing Died didn’t seem all that original, I was still excited to read it.

I think that stories of this kind can succeed in several different ways: through a thought-provoking scientific/philosophical exploration of the topic, through mind-binding twistiness, or simply as a way of telling several interesting and emotional personal stories in one. There were moments in this book where it seemed on the verge of doing all three, but ultimately, while it was a vaguely diverting family saga with some intriguing moments and some emotional ones, it never really did any one of these things well enough to capture my imagination.

The basic premise here is firstly, that the main character, Lauren (born in the 1970s in Cheshire), can see other versions of the world and the lives of herself and her loved ones through otherwise invisible sunbeams. And secondly, that whenever she dies, instead of disappearing entirely, she shifts into one of these parallel lives. For some reason, the sunbeam thing seemed to only happen to Lauren, while the shifting instead of dying thing also happened to some other characters on-page and was heavily implied to happen to pretty much everyone who died before their time. This slight disconnect between Lauren as unique versus Lauren as normal but more perceptive than average was a bit jarring and felt representative of the book not going deep enough for my tastes into the mysteries of its central scenario.

I don’t want to get into spoilers, but given the title and the way the book is presented, I was surprised by how few times the main character actually died. And, at least until the end, how little time she spends reflecting on previous lives or sneaking a peak into other worlds. As a result, most of the book isn’t very metaphysical at all and is essentially just normal people going about their business in a normal way. Which isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, but without mysterious distractions, the plot rather stands or falls on the strength of its characters and their lives. I liked Lauren herself, but few of the other characters made an impression and in none of the various lives did anyone do anything particularly noteworthy or exciting. It was 90% run of the mill middle class life, with 10% soap opera-style dramatic suicides and affairs with unlikely resolutions. And either way, a few scattered bright spots aside, it was mostly pretty unremittingly depressing, even allowing for the fact that a certain number of deaths were required to make the USP work.

In the final third, there is both some attempt to investigate a domestic mystery that’s been bubbling under the surface throughout and some attempt to engage with the bigger mystery of just what’s going on with Lauren on the level of both psychology and physics and as a result, I started to get more excited. But the resolution of the first mystery is somewhat underwhelming and the resolution of the second pretty inconclusive. I didn’t feel like I had any real closure – just more of the same sadness and a certain degree of wondering what the point of it all had been.

Ultimately, this was an okay book. There was just enough of both the interpersonal drama and the metaphysical intrigue to keep me reading. But it didn’t really bring anything new to the mix compared to any of the books it could be compared to and overall I was left feeling pretty underwhelmed and as though an intriguing premise had failed to burst into life.

Lauren Pailing was a fairly ordinary young girl when she died aged 13. However when she wakes up life is as it was….well nearly but with a few very small changes. Each time Lauren dies and wakes up in a very similar life there is one constant. Peter Stanning has disappeared.

This is a very clever book and one which I enjoyed very much. One review I read described this as time travelling. I personally saw it more as parallel universes. In reality it is up to the reader to decide what is really happening.

The author has written this story from the point of view of various characters. This enables the reader to keep a track on which of Lauren’s lives we are following. Consequently what could have been a hugely complex and confusing book was actually quite easy to follow and keep track of.

I don’t want to say too much more as it really would spoil the book. Do you like quirky & clever books? Are you interested in a slight science fiction edge to the ordinary world? Perhaps you are a fan of Claire North’s “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”? If so, then then is definitely the book for you.

I received a copy of this book via Netgalley.

This is a book that as you read it just keeps on giving .
Laur. Is almost like a cat with 9 lives- we follow her journey as she goes through several lives as she dies in each.
Great writing
Thank you to both NetGalley and HQ for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

The First Time Lauren Pailing Died is an accomplished and moving debut novel. Every time Lauren dies, a certain amount of trauma follows in its’ wake, and this is well explored. It is a profound exploration of loss, with a nod to Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.