Really enjoyed this book such a lovely read that I needed right now and I’m glad I read this one. I will definitely pick up more books from this author!

With a rather slow start, I persevered through this book and was delighted to have done so, as I had found myself completely enthralled. This was a well-written story, that really makes you think about certain life decisions.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

Despite a slow, jumpy and slightly confusing start as I tried to get my head around the time travel, I soon became engrossed in this book, and the thoughts it provokes. The time travel element isn't really explained, so the book requires you to suspend your beliefs, but I think the reality of the situation helps convey the message in a way a 'it was all a dream' couldn't.

I finished this book lifted and inspired that we have to trust our instincts, follow our choices, and not regret what might have been, or consider that the grass could've been greener. Rather, the message of this book is that it's usually yourself you need to change.

Overall, a well written, thought-provoking, yet light-hearted and humourous, consideration of an important theme.

The Blurb :
If you could turn back time, would you choose a different life?
Forty-something Maggie is facing some hard truths. Her only child has flown the nest for university and, without her daughter in the house, she’s realising her life, and her marriage to Dan, is more than a little stale.
When she spots an announcement on Facebook about a uni reunion, she can’t help wondering what happened to Jude Hanson. The same night Dan proposed, Jude asked Maggie to run away with him, and she starts to wonder how different her life might have been if she’d broken Dan’s heart and taken Jude up on his offer.
Wondering turns into fantasising, and then one morning fantasising turns into reality. Maggie wakes up and discovers she’s back in 1992 and twenty-one again. Is she brave enough to choose the future she really wants, and if she is, will the grass be any greener on the other side of the fence?
Two men. Two very different possible futures. But is there only once chance at happiness?

My Thoughts :
I really enjoyed this book, it explores the what ifs that im sure we all think about at some point in our lives. Maggie was a great charactor and the jumping backwards and forwards time travel really worked. As we work through the story, we get to see how life would of been if Maggie had chosen a life with her ex boyfriend Jude or the life she currently has with husband Dan. Fiona Harper really pulls at the heart strings with this one and makes it a gripping read. I couldnt wait to get to the end to see which life she actually ended up with. Throughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it.

An unusual story of second chances

Forty something Maggie is facing some hard truths. Her daughter has flown the nest and Maggie realises her Marriage to Dan is getting stale.

When Maggie spots a reunion at her old Uni she starts wondering what if she had taken a different route in life and had eloped with her old love Jude.

Her fantasies turn real when she wakes up in an alternant life. Are fantasies best left as just that?

Not my usual choice of book, but what a great book!

Everybody wonders what could have happened if they had taken other choices, Maggie has the chance and its very thought provoking. The grass isn’t always greener.

Well written, funny and likeable characters add up to a fantastic read. Fiona has found a winning formula with this book. My only gripe is she doesn’t explain how the time travel happens, but it doesn’t detract in any way from a truly wonderful tale.

Helen

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

The story of Maggie, Dan, Becca and Jude... all together in college and only Jude hasn't kept in touch. But Maggie wonders if Jude is the one that got away, the one she would of had the perfect life with. The reader is treated to not only Maggie's life as she has led it, but two alternative lives. One with Dan but different, she is more considerate and not so demanding, but its still not perfect. Then a life with Jude where she has used her talent to gain their business, all that money can buy and a perfect figure. But is life still perfect? We jump with Maggie through the years into the two lives believing that the original one has gone. We see how she tries to change things she doesn't like about life or herself.. But do we see her get the perfect happy ending??

This is a brilliantly written book in such a way there is no way of putting it down - and if you do, its a pull of what is happening while your not there. The characters are fantastic, even with the jumping and change. A strong few life lessons can be learned form reading this story.

Brilliant summer read

Thanks Netgalley and Publisher. I actually really like this author and this book did not disappoint

Maggie’s feeling fed-up with life of late. Her only daughter is off to Uni and her marriage to her husband Dan seems to have lost its spark. So when Maggie receives an invite to a Uni reunion along with her best friend, Becca, she is extremely curious. She also can’t help but wonder if Jude will be there…Jude Hanson presented Maggie with some very difficult choices all those years ago…and the Uni reunion forces her to question as to whether the decisions she’s made over the past 20-odd years have been the right ones.

However, when Maggie wakes up to find herself twenty-one again and sharing student accommodation with Becca she finds herself able to take her life on an entirely different path to the one she opted for first time round. But the big question is – does she want to choose a different path, or will the decisions she made when she was twenty one turn out to be the right ones?

I have read and loved many of Fiona Harper’s previous books, so naturally I was really looking forward to getting stuck into The Other Us. However I will also admit that I LOVE books that transport their characters back in time and cause them to question as to whether they made the right decisions in life. It’s a format that I just love, it never gets old for me. I think I’m partly so obsessed with storylines such as this because there isn’t one of us who hasn’t wished they could go back in time at some point of another and make a different decision. Things this like absolutely fascinate me, so it’s no surprise that I gobbled this book up in one greedy sitting.

The concept of the novel that interested me most was how Maggie’s relationships and reactions to people and events were different the second time around. This is because she knew she was in the past, and she also had this insider knowledge of what happens and the way in which people behave in the future, which is both crazy and completely fascinating.
My only worry with novels that follow this concept is that I’ll get confused along the way (a regular occurrence…) however I didn’t once lose track of where the characters were and what time frame we were in. The story was brilliantly constructed and really easy to follow (phew!)

Fiona is a fantastic writer. Her books are so easy to lose yourself in and The Other Us was no different. Her books are funny, uplifting and always have that little something extra to keep your attention firmly within the pages.

The Other Us is an extremely enjoyable, thought-provoking read, based on a fascinating concept and centred around a hugely likeable lead character in Maggie. You might be screaming at the pages during certain points but you will be desperate to discover which path Maggie is going to take the second time round…

Sometimes you see a book and you have a feeling that it is calling to you “please, read me!”I had such feeling with “The Other Us” by Fiona Harper, even without reading the synopsis I just knew I want to read this book, period, so I was incredibly happy to be accepted for it on NetGalley.

Maggie is forty – six and she’s not happy with her marriage. she starts wondering what would have happened if she, instead of marrying Dan, stayed with her university flame Jude – would her life be better? Would she be happier? I think it is the thing that happens to most of us, we sometimes wonder what if – but we don’t get the answer. However, Maggie did – one day she wakes up to discover she’s in her twenties again and she has a chance to see how her life would look like if she agreed to stay with Jude. So what follows are alternate stories of Maggie’s life with Dan and Jude and we see the consequences of the many different decisions she makes.

There were some things that just didn’t ring a bell for me, that just didn’t work. Firstly, I really don’t understand why Maggie has suddenly started “jumping” between three timelines. It happened oh just because, for no reason, and she calmly faced the fact and accepted it very quickly and it was nothing unusual for her. Such thing would scare the hell out of me if it happened to me. Then I had a big problem with Maggie herself. She has never seemed to be happy with things – never! She was disappointed with everything and she always found something, in all those three lives, to be unhappy about. She just didn’t know what she wants and it bothered me incredibly. I had a feeling she’s self – obsessed, everything was “I”, “me”, about her – yes, I do know it was written from her point of view but there came a moment that I just couldn’t hear any more of her whingeing. Thirdly, this book is so wordy! There are so many inner – monologues, reflections, what ifs, wondering, with little dialogues, and so it felt too dragging, too flat, too long, as if nothing, except for Maggie “jumping” (as she says so herself) was happening. I also didn’t see anything in particular she could learn from this “jumping”, the periods of times she skipped and the moments she found herself arriving were not so significant and were very random, there was no plan to them.

The good thing is that I never felt confused with the times changing and Maggie jumping. I also liked the fact that the book is ambitious, asking questions and making you wonder about your own life and happiness. “The Other Us” is a story about love, full of emotions and second chances and learning what is important. I’m sure it is a great, thought – provoking book but – sadly – it didn’t work for me the way I hoped it would. Nevertheless, please try it for yourself, you may find yourself falling in love with it.

I enjoyed this book and thought it was a bit like the film sliding doors but this was better. The story has a lot of twists and turns and at the beginning you are thrown right in.
The book is based around Maggie, a forty something housewife married to Dan her boyfriend since uni, on the night Dan proposes to Maggie her previous boyfriend, Jude, asks her to run away with him and this has her thinking as life spirals downwards with Dan and herself what would life with Jude have been like??
You follow Maggies life from being twenty switching between a different life she could have had with Dan and learning about him so present day life with him is better or if she had gone with Jude and what life she would have had.
This book is about finding yourself, love and being thankful for the choices you have made as although some people's life looks too good to be true it usually is.
I liked all the main characters in this book and liked how Maggie came to realise her shortfalls and how in her "real" life she could rectify these.
I would like to thank netgalley and hq stories for this ARC I received in exchange for an honest review.

I'm sure we've all had those 'what if'' moments in our lives when we've wondered what our lives would have been like if we'd made a different decision at certain points in our lives, well that is the concept at the heart of this latest book from Fiona Harper. For forty-something Maggie, things have been a little stale lately with husband Dan and she suspects he is hiding something from her, but little does she realise that going to bed after an argument how her life would change!

What follows is a bit of a 'Sliding Doors' scenario where she continually wakes up in past stages of her life, starting in 1992 just as Dan is about to propose, but her life has taken alternate paths; a life with her ex boyfriend Jude or a life with Dan, albeit a different to the one she had already experienced.

I will admit that at first I found it a little disjointed as there is no timeline at the beginning of the chapters so you didn't know whether you were in the present or one of the two alternate past timelines until you started reading. But after a while I got used to the jumping around and it didn't really matter as I found myself caught up along with Maggie wondering what on earth was going to happen next. Would she finally remember all the good times that she and Dan had experienced together or will she find a new happy ever after with Jude?

Having read quite a few of the authors books in the past, this to me seemed something a little different to her previous books I had read and I enjoyed this more thought-provoking read so am interested to see what direction her writing takes next.

I loved this book. It's very easy to get in to. I love a good romance read and this didn't disappoint.
The sort of book that leaves you thinking how different things could be....

I have really enjoyed some of Fiona's other stories in the past so had to give this one ago.

I was interested to see how the story plays out. It is a dilemma we can all relate to. Is the grass greener on the other side? What if I didn't do this but did this instead would I be happy etc. I will not give away any spoilers as I like people to read a book and have all the wow moments and the lol moments etc for themselves.

This is well written and I really enjoyed it. You feel connected to the characters and want to follow their journey. It did start of a bit slow but once you get into it I enjoyed it. So one defiantly to keep at. I really enjoyed the best friend relationship between Maggie and Becca.

I would recommend this book to anyone who like a good romance, chick-flick and women's fiction.

Romantic, uplifting and thought provoking, I loved the whole idea of this book. Like “Sliding doors” it is a novel that makes you think of those paths never taken. To be 21 again re-living the past with the knowledge you have now is a fascinating idea that will resonate with anyone whose 21st is a distant memory…..
Maggie has been married to Dan for 24 years, and has a grown up daughter. With an empty nest and a stale marriage, a disillusioned Maggie often thinks of the chances she missed, the paths she never took and wonders what if? Then one morning she finds herself waking up as her vibrant and hopeful 21 year old self, at a pivotal time in her life. She now has a chance to do things differently. Her life unravels as her decisions change and she jumps between two very different lives never sure which one she will wake up in. There is a tangle of different outcomes for all the characters as everything shifts with each choice she makes.
Drawn to time travel and paranormal themes I have read a few books with a similar theme but I can honestly say this feels fresh and I was absorbed by Maggie’s journey. This is an easy read and a great story that was emotional and involving. The plot is well thought out and shifting between lives is written so well. I adored the ending which is perfectly done. I love this author who is completely new to me. I would say it is comparable to “The versions of us” by Laura Barnett, but for me it is more emotionally satisfying. I loved the idea and still loved it after reading the final page.

4.5 stars. I loved this clever read! Maggie / Meg lives three different timelines, hopping between them, hopping forward in them, but I was never lost. Thought-provoking and compelling with a strong, mature message of how ultimately it's not who you love, but how you love, and the dangers (and opportunities?) of wondering "what if?". Definitely a recommended read for the summer.



[Goodreads and will post to Amazon UK and US when live]

A clever & emotionally charged story for anyone who has ever wondered "what if?"

What I liked:
This book is very cleverly written, and it's a concept I admit I've never seen in a book before. It's got a touch of Freaky Friday about it, but it's a lovely and light story perfect for your holidays. It's a very intriguing concept, and one I've been very interested in throughout my life.
I loved the lesson that not matter what happens in life, life will never be exactly perfect, and I spent a lot of the book feeling quite sorry for Maggie, in each of her incarnations.

What I didn't like:
This book is littered with clichés, which does make it a little eye-roll inducing at times. It was often confusing when the narrative switched from present to past, and often you will have to concentrate and think again as to which Maggie is speaking. It jumps from timeline to timeline with very little indication as to when we're looking at. With every incarnation, you had to wonder why Maggie and Becca were still friends, and why Maggie kept seeking her company out. I thought, too, that returning to Maggie's past was quite apt, because there were times she was 40 going on 14.

Overall, three and a half stars. It's a fantastic story, but I did have some hurdles with it.

I really liked this book. It took a while to get into and get familiar with both stories but once I did it was wonderful and I loved the ending. Would recommend for people who liked One Day.

I loved this book. It's a bit of a time travelling story with Meg moving from her long standing marriage to Dan to another life with Jude the other love interest in her college school days.

I did have to concentrate on which life Meg was in whilst reading but once I got into the book I was gripped hoping Megs life would turn out well.

As a wife of over 30 years I could relate to Megs long standing marriage problems and the way partners can take each other for granted and niggle each other.

I highly recommend this book, it kept me reading late into the night so I could finish it. Fiona Harper is an author I will look out for again