The First Time Lauren Pailing Died

by Alyson Rudd

*** The captivating new novel from Alyson Rudd – Eleven Lines to Somewhere – is available to pre-order now!***

‘STYLISH, ALLURING, UTTERLY GRIPPING’ Lisa O’Kelly, Observer

‘LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER READ BEFORE’ Red

Lauren Pailing is born in the sixties, and a child of the seventies. She is thirteen years old the first time she dies.

Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the eighties, becomes a Londoner in the nineties. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her – while Lauren enters a brand new life, too.

But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him.

And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found…

Perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson and Maggie O’Farrell, The First Time Lauren Pailing Died is a book about loss, grief – and how, despite it not always feeling that way, every ending marks the start of something new.

• ISBN13: 9780008278274
• Publish Date: 11 July 2019
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 11 March 2024
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HQ
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[zooloo1983]

Amazing!! Simply amazing! I bought this book ages ago and I have been trying to find the right time to open it up and start it…well, I found the right time!

There is something completely magical about this book. It’s got the feels of Sliding Doors but with the memories. I fell in love with Lauren and her lives. So many different stories, threads, lives crossing over and around us. It was well just magical.

Lauren Pailing has had a life of it. But she has not had one life she’s had a few. We have the “original” life, we have her life after she died, and then whole different life. Lauren is quite simply a pure soul, no other words for her. We then have chapters with her father and her mother, all with different outcomes to the fateful day. That’s all I can say on the plot. Only one constant in each life is Peter Stanning disappears. This is the only bit I haven’t worked out, but I am ok with that, I am not bogged down with the why’s and how’s and have taken this book for the enjoyment it has brought me.

I went in without reading any reviews and brushing over the blurb because I didn’t want any spoilers. I can’t remember why I bought the book. I think the cover and the title sucked me in and I knew I had to read it. I wish I hadn’t waited so long but I am glad I did. I read this over 2 days and I kept thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it. There is an air of mysticism and I am glad it wasn’t ruined in any way. For me, everything worked. The speed of the stories, the background, the different “doors” of Lauren’s life. I may have cried, a few certain scenes with Tim and George. I really could not fathom how this would all play out but I was sent on a beautiful journey but not without its heartbreaks.

God, I want to say so much more. I thought I had read my favourite book of 2020 and everyone knows it was my favourite but I tell you what, this book well this book might just be the book to knock it off its pedestal and that is saying something. I thought that being nearly 400 pages it would take days but I flew through it. The writing by Alyson is so engaging, she knows when to pull you in and when to let you flounder on your own. Easily, so easily see this being made into a film. It would be perfect for the big screen. We wouldn’t be bogged down in all the details, just taken on this journey. A journey of one woman and the butterfly effects of her life. There is no other way to describe it.

I don’t think I have any more words for this book, bar go read it. It’s breathtaking, emotive and it’s magical.