Maybe Next Time (Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick)

by Cesca Major

Overview

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK 

A heartwarming and emotionally poignant time-loop novel about a stressed woman who must relive the same day over and over, keeping her family and work life from imploding as she attempts to change the course of her life. 

Dan is Emma’s person. She’s known it since the first time she saw him dressed in lederhosen on the tube.

On their fifteen year ‘dateversary’, Emma texts a list of everything she should have told Dan that morning.

Tell the kids to remember their homework…

And their gloves.

Can you defrost some sausages?

Emma just forgets to write the most important words of all – I love you – and by the end of the day everything changes.

Or does it? Emma is given the chance to rewrite their future – if she can just figure out their past…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063239951
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	4,493
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Cesca Major is a novelist and screenwriter. Her book Maybe Next Time was selected for the Reese Book Club and is being developed for film by Hello Sunshine and Apple Originals. She writes for television and has adapted If I Were You for film with 42 and Amazon. She is published in over 12 countries with books under different names. She was shortlisted for a HWA Gold Crown, the RNA’s Romantic Comedy Award, and longlisted for a CWA Gold Dagger. Having worked in television as a presenter, Cesca enjoys live events, festivals and teaching creative writing. She regularly vlogs writing tips. She lives in Berkshire, England, with her husband and three young children. She is so far resisting getting a dog.

Editorial Reviews

01/23/2023

Major (The Silent Hours) draws on Groundhog Day for a poignant tale of love, regret, and second chances involving a London couple. High-powered literary agent Emma, married with two children to hopeless romantic Dan, has forgotten to write him a letter on Monday, December 3—the day the two met on a London tube. Dan has come to expect these letters each year, and after a tiff, he goes out to walk the dog—and gets hit by a car and dies. Or does he? Emma wakes up the next morning and suddenly it’s Monday, December 3, all over again, and she has a second chance to show Dan how much she loves him. For months, Emma and Dan are caught in a time loop of endless Mondays, and despite Emma’s most fervent efforts—ignoring the constant pings from WhatsApp is a significant sacrifice—Dan dies every time, whether by car, heart attack, or other circumstance. Things culminate in a surprising coincidence, and Major caps it all off with an ambiguous ending. Well-drawn supporting characters add depth, in particular Emma’s sister-in-law, Hattie, with whom the couple is especially close, and whom Emma forces herself to make more time for as well. Women’s fiction fans will love this tearjerker. Agent: Kristyn Keene Benton, CAA. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Just glorious: moving, thought-provoking, life-affirming. I loved this book!" — Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author

"I challenge you not to cry." — Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author

"A timeless classic." — Hazel Gaynor, New York Times bestselling author

"Haunting, moody, clever and affecting." — Gillian McAllister, New York Times bestselling author

"Heartwarming and life-affirming- a gorgeous read." — Louise O'Neill

"Thought-provoking, tear-jerking, and page-turning- an amazing and amusing book that will really make you think about your life." — Katie Fforde

"Ingenious, intriguing, and so emotional." — Jill Mansell

"Deeply moving, extremely funny, brilliantly knowing, and fabulously observed... Heartbreaking but simultaneously life-affirming. A total triumph." — Daisy Buchanan

"Superbly plotted, shockingly breathtaking- heartbreaking, poignant, and beautifully written... A love story like no other." — Cathy Bramley

From the Publisher

2023-02-23
A harried London woman lives the same day over and over again, with her husband always dying at 10:17 p.m.

Time fragments and collides in this story encompassing the first meeting, marriage, child-rearing, lockdown, and post-lockdown lives of Emma and Dan, a married couple in their early 40s. The first time Dan dies, Emma is a harried literary agent so focused on her work, volunteering, and support of everyone outside her family that she has forgotten the anniversary of her first meeting with Dan and missed the clues that something is very amiss with both of their children and their dog. Dan is crushed that she's forgotten the anniversary—she's the one who suggested they celebrate every year with heartfelt letters to one another. He’s written to her every year since—including the year he moved out because of his grief over losing his mother and his inability to be the parent to his newborn daughter that he should have been. Author Major has told Dan’s story of his and Emma’s lives together, and his love and frustrations with his partner's complexities, through these annual letters. Emma’s story of growth and change is told through her first-person account of living that single day over and over again. Dan always dies, but Emma's experience of her relationship with him and her family changes as she relives every day. Fans of the 1998 movie Sliding Doors will enjoy this book. Experiences of anguish, depression, grief, and anger as well as those of patience, love, acceptance, and peace are all addressed.

A story of mindfulness and joy in the small routines of love and family.

Kirkus Reviews