by Sarah Lotz

HarperCollins out now

(released as The Impossible Us in the US)

 

A 21st century pair of star-cross’d lovers face obstacles Romeo and Juliet could never have imagined…

Shakespeare’s protagonists have it easy compared with Sarah Lotz’s couple, Nick and Rebecca (Bee). A misdirected angry email is the catalyst for a coup de foudre that becomes the basis of the book. Many of us have been in situations where the object of our desire is or should be unattainable – either through geography or for more moral reasons (cf Douglas Adams’ famous line about why his girlfriend left him) – but it’s nothing to these two. How Lotz deals with this makes for a book you’ll want to stick with to find out if they get the proverbial happy ending – even without the genre element that throws a real spanner in the works.

Spoilers follow

What they need is their own Doctor Strange – the former Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe – because these two realise with horror that they are in different universes. Lotz plays fair – in fact more than fair – alerting the reader early on that something is up. Given the genre this appears to be in, you suspect it’s one thing – but a reread of part 1 after you’ve reached the critical moment shows that the clues are there, rather like the way the initials PDNY are a clue in Sony’s Into the Spider-verse.

The book’s style makes it a fun read – it’s partly an epistolary novel because the means of contact is by email (something Lotz used to great effect in her last, non genre, book, The Missing Person) and it means we see three sides of both our protagonists: the one they show others, the one they show each other – and the truth. She throws a lot of the tropes of both parallel world and frustrated lovers into the mix – but with twists that really do keep you guessing. There are of course doppelgängers and they’re used well, and you’ll sometimes envy the choices made in the alternate world. The inclination to jump to the end, though, must be resisted!

When something cataclysmic happens in your life – as it did for me with my heart attack mid-December – it makes you reassess everything (up to and including what books to read and review!) and you do think about the meaning of life and love. Lotz does not approach love with rose-tinted spectacles – her couple are appropriately cynical and true to human nature – but this is a celebration that suggests that maybe amor can vincit omnia. Or at least it should damn well have the best chance possible.

Verdict: You may well devour this in a couple of sittings as I did, intrigued by both the characters and the worlds in which they live. Highly recommended. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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