Tara Selter lives the Eighteenth of November on repeat forcing her to meditate on the extraordinary nature of life: “That we exist at all. That each of us has come into being as only one of untold possibilities.” A fellow reviewer noted that the novel is somewhat like a “meditative literary version” of The Groundhog Day movie. Personally I kept thinking of the movie “About Time” and in particular the advice to use the time travel to absolutely savour every tiny moment of every single ordinary day. Tara spends most of her time wondering why time has fractured and how she can slip back through the fracture, meanwhile “I talk to no one, but my world acquires more and more details, I pluck words from a world with many voices, from a mood that lends colour…Too many words pour in, the day becomes heavier, slower, comes to a halt.” Excited to read the other six volumes. Special thank you to Faber & NetGalley for a no obligation advance digital review copy.

Tara and her husband Thomas run an antiquarian book business from their home in France. One November 17th she sets off for Paris having booked herself into her usual hotel. The following day starts like any other but there’s a curious coincidence at the breakfast buffet when a guest drops a piece of bread on the floor as they did yesterday. More alarmingly, the daily paper proclaims the date to be November 18th, and Thomas has no recollection of last night's telephone conversation. So begins a year in which Tara is trapped in that November day, able to vary her own version while others perform the same actions for the first time.
Balle’s novel is structured as a diary. Each section is headed with the number of the current iteration of November 18th Tara’s living through as she records her experience – the daily recaps with an astonished Thomas, their mutual scientific investigations, the days in which they wrap themselves up in each other, her eventual retreat into the guest room and avoidance of her husband as he carries out precisely the same actions as he did the day before. Tara and Thomas’s surprisingly easy acceptance of her ordeal is a bit of a stretch but, obviously, readers’ belief must be suspended from the first page. It’s a novel you’ll likely either enjoy or find infuriating. I was intrigued by the puzzle of what it might mean - a metaphor for Tara and Thomas's marriage, a form of dementia or just your standard Kafkaesque nightmare - but I’m unlikely to continue with Balle’s series through its seven volumes.

As intriguing as it sounded! The perfect balance between high concept and domestic, full of compassion and empathy for Tara, and her relationships with the inevitably ignorant Thomas, thought-provoking on how each of our lives bring relentless miniature destructions that can pass seemingly unnoticed by us and those around us, and, above all. a gripping and original plot. I can't wait to read the next volume of this stunning journey.

Tara Selter is living the same day, the 18th of November, over and over again. This is not Groundhog Day, it is not played for laughs or for the mystery, but instead Solvej Valley uses the gimmick to explore the nature of time, of memory, and of living in the moment. It is beautifully written (and translated from the Danish) and it becomes more engaging the deeper you get into it. A word of warning: this is just the first volume in a seven novel cycle, so reading this volume and reviewing it is like only reviewing a work based on a few chapters. I am very keen to read the remaining volumes in the series - all of which I expect are forthcoming. I can recommend this thoroughly, though you may want to wait until all the books are out before starting it yourself. But if you do decide to pick it up, you are in for a real literary treat.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

Really strange, fascinating and mesmerising. But also depressing. And to be honest, I’m not sure if I believed in it, that someone would be able to live through the same day again and again and not go mad or kill themselves. Not for me I’m afraid.
Thank you Faber & Faber and Netgalley UK for the ARC.

This is the first instalment of a seven-part series of novels about a woman, Tara Selter, who wakes up every day on 18 November. Somewhere during the night, things are reset and return to how they were at dawn on the 18th. And so the day endlessly repeats itself, in a loop, with only Tara noticing and growing older and trying to escape, but also somehow enjoying the monotony of everyday life and the intimate knowledge of each and every sound.

As you read, the hope of an escape - or at least some development towards solving the mystery - is always in the back of your mind, as she enlists the help of her partner or returns to place where it all started...but deep down you know the pleasure of a solution is probably not going to be granted.

Solvej Balle is a Danish novelist that I had not heard of before, but apparently enjoyed some success in the nineties with works inspired by Kafka and Borges. This 'Calculation of Volume' series is said to be her big comeback.

I enjoyed it a lot and am quite eager to get to Part 2, but I wonder if I will have the patience to sit it out until Part 7...

An interesting concept - Tara is stuck in fault in time. Her day keeps repeating and repeating - in fact a year’s worth of repeats. The writing is immersive and I found myself reading faster and faster to find out if Tara can find a way out of her nightmare. Alas, an inconclusive cliffhanger which leaves you wondering’Did she or didn’t she?’ And then I find out there are more books to follow. I will have to be patient! ( and hope that my many questions and niggles are resolved…….. )

The premise of this short book is that Tara Selter, who with her husband runs an online antiquarian book business, goes to Paris on a buying trip and suddenly becomes enmeshed in a fault in time which leads her to live the same day over and over again. Not quite like Groundhog Day, though: some small things change, and the experience prompts some deep reflections on how we live our lives. Tara moves from puzzlement through fear and anguish. Tension builds as she devises strategies to force her time to move on to the next day and the reader shares her disappointment and sadness when they don't work.

The book is beautifully written - I think the translator has done a brilliant job. But the cliffhanger ending left me unsatisfied. And then I discovered that there are further books in the series, seven in all. I am looking forward to reading the next volume, out next spring.

Thanks to Faber and Netgalley for the ARC.

I really don't know what to make of this. The writing flows well and is compelling. The situation that Tara finds herself in is bizarre, terrifying and unimaginable. Her husband believes her and they try to work out what to do together, but then she drifts off and lives a ghost-like existance. As the anniversary of November 18th arrives, she tries to re-create her day, hoping for change. She confides in friends who do not believe her and are, in fact, horrified. We leave her hoping for a resolution. I have read that this is the first volume of a heptology!! I need to read more. Groundhog Day this is not.