Because this project is still in the early stages of development there is no current estimated release.

It is clear to us early on that there is a mystery to be solved. Why the recurring lives? Why the disparate ages, roles, and relationships? After a time, it becomes clear to Thora and Santi, too. They begin to realize that they have known each other and remember things from their former lives. Also, there are some consistencies, some places and characters that recur, unchanged. Recurring elements (Santi’s cat, a tattoo on Thora’s wrist) first gain meaning through repetition, and then become touchstones, triggering inferences for the reader about how the characters have changed and where they might be headed. Once Santi and Thora realize they are trapped in a loop, they (along with the reader) must piece together the clues scattered through the narrative to figure out what might really be going on. - from the LitHub articleThe notion that sparked the book is very down to earth. But these are two characters who are reaching for the stars, and Silvey’s solution was very fantasy/sci-fi-ish. …the question was: can two people ever know each other completely? That led me to the idea of characters who meet again and again in different versions of their lives…I think of the book as an argument: Thora and Santi have very different attitudes to their situation, and that leads them to respond to it in different ways. - from the Deborah Kalb interviewThere are obvious similarities to other works that deal in re-iteration. Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life (when Thora refers to herself as the Fox to Santi’s Wolf, is that a nod to that book?) uses the method in consideration of England in the first half or the 20th Century, and looking at the possible branches life might take were one to choose A instead of B, or B instead of C, giving the available choices a go until a desirable path forward is found. Thora, in particular, and Santi try this out, but it is not enough to solve the puzzle. Cloud Atlas is another novel offering common characters in diverse times (and places. This one is all in Cologne). Groundhog Day is the most famous cinematic rom-com loop and Andy Samberg’s Palm Springs gave it a similar go in 2020. 50 First Dates anyone? There is a clear romantic element in this one, too, as Thora and Santi are souls who are clearly meant to be together, (Yeah, I know, some might see them as merely tethered. But my take is that there is greater depth to their connection.) despite the fact that Thora is bisexual and has major hots for a woman, Jules, in many of the stories. Santi and Thora are a couple in others. Special Forces' Season 2 Finalists Talk Grueling Week In New Zealand Wilderness & Their Willingness To Return This book is admittedly a little into the fantasy genre, but if that genre is not your thing, PLEASE do not be put off. You will be enthralled, I cannot believe this is a debut novel. Recommended by Popsugar • Bustle • Goodreads • Tor • Mashable • BookBub • io9 Gizmodo • Lambda Literary • BookRiot • CrimeReads • The Nerd Daily • and many more! Thora and Santi are strangers in a foreign city when a chance encounter intertwines their fates. At once, they recognize in each other a kindred spirit—someone who shares their insatiable curiosity, who is longing for more in life than the cards they’ve been dealt. Only days later, though, a tragic accident cuts their story short.

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What I didn't like falls under two categories. One, is mostly on me. This was not the book for me at this time. I was looking for something romantic & uplifting, and this book is neither of those. That is NOT a bad thing--this book is many other good things--but I think the blurb (and the comparison to The Time Traveler's Wife) can sell people on romantic & uplifting. There is romance, but it's a subplot, and while I would call it a love story, but not a traditional romantic one. I don’t really think about genre when I’m writing. I go with an idea that excites me and try to tell it in the way that best serves that idea. So in a sense, my ideal reader for Meet Me in Another Life would be one who goes in with an open mind, not expecting any particular genre. However, realistically, genre expectations do influence how a reader approaches a book, and whether they are enjoyably surprised or disappointed when those expectations are subverted. Atlas Entertainment and Pilot Wave (Gal Gadot’s production company) have partnered together for the feature film.

The film rights have been optioned by Atlas Entertainment and Pilot Wave, with Gal Gadot to produce and star. I spotted much news coverage of this that was, IMHO, wrong-headed, in portraying the book as an LGBTQ sci-fi novel. Thora is indeed bi-sexual, with more story time with female than male partners, but that is sooooo not what this book is about. We do know that once Hollywood gets its claws on a novel, the end product can diverge dramatically (or even melodramatically) from the source material. This initial coverage is not encouraging. But then, many film-rights options are never exercised. So we, who favor hewing as closely as possible to written source material, are a long way from having to fret over this. Santi and Thora challenge each other’s views in these brief moments across these shared lives, and then in the blink of an eye, their lives meet tragedies that take the many different forms of a permanent goodbye, and then the next chapter begins. It is almost like a more romanticised version of Groundhog Day, except it is never the same day, or the same life, and instead shares prominent similarities that keep these characters consistently the same in terms of ambition. As a writer, I’m so inspired by the storytelling possibilities of film,” said Silvey. “I’m beyond thrilled that a team that has been involved in some of my absolute favorites will be giving my book a whole new life in another medium.” Eventually, the bigger picture emerges, questions are answered and loose ends tied off. I found it to be an emotional journey, and a hugely rewarding one at that. In part it’s a love story (more than one, actually) and to a greater extent it’s a mystery that makes no sense… until it does. A fantastic adventure that I’ll be thinking about for ages to come, of that I’m absolutely certain.

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It also felt like a weird choice to only show them dying a couple of times in a book about parallel lives/reincarnation/multiple chances. The whole structure of the book is based on them dying repeatedly! It feels like a weird cheat for the author to break her own rules by allowing them to move on to the next life without actually resolving for us the one they’re currently in. I don’t know if the author couldn’t bring herself to actually kill her characters over and over or if The Powers That Be thought it might be too much for readers (admittedly, very possibly true), but it made it really hard to actually care about the stakes and to feel for them in each of their iterations as I think I was supposed to. Instead, I left most of the vignettes feeling unresolved and frustrated. It was a fascinating read- how much does fate play a part in uniting souls together? If we are from different lives, do we still find each other? I have often wondered things like this- would I have still met my fiance 7 years ago had we both not moved to Chester for different reasons and worked with our mutual friend? A beautiful idea, and executed with remarkable ease.

Thora and Santi are fabulously created characters. Just like their physical contrasts, their beliefs are poles apart. Thora is a firm believer in free will and random events that needn’t have an obvious cause of purpose or correlation. Santi, on the other hand, is a staunch adherent of determinism and that everything springs from a divine plan, and everything has a purpose. But something seems to bring them together in every lifetime and it’s mind-blowing to see their behavioural patterns and thought processes over the ages. Some other character names are mentioned at regular interims and their relation to the two main characters remains almost the same throughout. But as they have just a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance in most of the lives, it’s only Thora and Santi who stay in your mind. She closes it hurriedly. “Give me one second,” she says, and wheels her office chair over to the card printer.Science fiction can reach out to the stars and at the same time hold tight to the human heart. The many layers of mystery in this beautiful love story lead to a breathtaking ending. Places are extremely important in the novel. We have both a larger view with the city as a whole, but also its streets, its landmarks, and the places where Santi and Thora live. How are those places both a reflection of who Santi and Thora are at the time and an illustration of permanent traits in their characters? Once we hit part two things started to become clearer and I loved the way it was all heading. Santi and Thora tortured themselves and each other showing many different sides to them, I loved their imperfections and the ongoing debates. I often found myself siding with Santi but I think that is because I’m an optimist at heart.

A - That's an interesting question! My honest answer is "not really"... I did realise after writing the book that there is a linguistically informed way of thinking about time loops, and why they might be appealing to a reader - I wrote about that in an essay on LitHub: https://lithub.com/on-the-counterintu... But if my experience as a researcher influenced the book at all during the writing, it might be in the way Thora and Santi's situation mirrors the strange, lonely-together rootlessness of academics - people who are usually foreigners in the place they're living, brought together by shared passions, using English as a lingua franca but often talking past each other.

At the surface level, this seems like a weird combination of The Midnight Library (the book) and Groundhog Day (the movie). But this book is so much more than the repetition of lives. As I usually do, I started jotting down points I wanted to discuss in my review. And many of the points I wrote seemed to be plot holes. Why do these two keep meeting in some kind of strange reincarnation? Why is the city the same every time? Why don’t their names change in every lifetime? Why don’t the other persons in their lives change their relationships, how come only these two change? Why is the timeline not changing, how come every life seems to be in the same time period? And on and on… But then comes the Big Reveal at about 70%! (I’m not sure of the exact location because I was so stunned by it, I forgot to make a note of it!) Plot holes resolved, doubts clarified, mysteries uncovered, and all this leads to the discovery of a greater, more potent problem at hand. I couldn’t rest until I reached the ending from this point onwards! The ground shakes. Santi falls. A tearing like the universe breaking in two. A rip opens up in the floor. Thora is on the other side. He reaches out, almost meeting her grasping fingers. Gravity takes them, and they fall apart, two planets pulled by the force of separate suns. It also felt like the characters and their relationships to each other were really uneven. In some chapters the characters felt really captivating, their connection felt real, and you cared about what was happening to them, and in others they felt flat, forced, and none of it seemed to matter. Sometimes their connection felt strong, and other times it felt like we were being told they mattered to each other rather than being shown. It also felt like, a lot of times, the characters only had dimension and depth when they were the POV character and became one-dimensional when they weren't. Too often, they existed on the periphery of the other's story until they took center stage again, rather than feeling like complex characters independently throughout. Now to come to the 11 hour long audiobook, narrated by Kristin Atherton. If I could rate her performance 10 stars, I would. What a phenomenal experience it was to hear her voice Thora and Santi in each lifetime without it sounding tedious even once! She was amazing.