When a bomb hits Woolworths in 1944, among others 5 children are tragically killed.

This novel explores an alternative life for each of those children.

This novel seems to have thoroughly divided opinion, with its detailed characters and long drawn out prose. Like Marmite, there are lovers and haters.

Me, I sit somewhere in the middle.

I wanted to love it. I love this time period in historical fiction, but sadly really struggled with it.

I don't think I've ever read a book that came so close to being good. Light Perpetual has huge potential, but it is ultimately undone by its own narrow perspective.

It’s times like this when I almost resent netgalley for having a minimum length of a review because this is one of those novels that makes me just want to write a single word review like ‘breathtaking’ or ‘incandescent’ and let the dramatic impact say the rest :)

Truly this book is both of those words and about 1 million more. I read it in less than 24 hours and paused only to keep telling everybody how sad I was going to be when it finished. One of my friends said there must be a word in Danish or Japanese for that feeling where you are racing through a book and simultaneously dreading it being over!

The stories told in this novel are profoundly ordinary and at the same time utterly extraordinary. I’m not emotional as a rule - in fact I’m brutally cynical - but at almost every stage I found myself thinking how unutterably lucky every one of us is to experience the mundanity and fury and beauty and terror and joy that makes up a life.

This is also a love letter to London and rarely has a city been so evocatively drawn in my opinion, no I’m not from there and don’t live there.

The first thing I did on finishing this book was order his debut novel and hope earnestly that he’s busy writing his next.

I've come late to this book but oh what a book! The most stunning opening chapter I've ever read and a heartbreaking sequence of 'alternative lives'. It was a little hard to work out who was who to begin with but I enjoyed it when they returned decades later and often with completely different life situations. A good cultural history of Britain.

November 1944 and a German bomb hits a London Woolworths, killing staff, customers and passers by. Among the dead are 5 young children, lives ended before they have truly started.

The novelist refuses to let such young lives go to waste and speculates as to the lives they might have lived had they survived. As the narrative leaps through the decades we see personalities develop and lives change as characters take advantage of or become victims of the changing economic circumstances of the times.

Each leap represents a change in fortunes or circumstances as each character tries to find a place for themselves. No one is settled as though the effects of the bomb continue to ripple through time. Much is left unsaid between partners, between siblings, between parents and children.

Probably one of the most devastating opening chapters In recent times. And the final section is one of poignant reflection as we mourn the lives of those who never really lived.

An astounding piece of fiction, looking at how the world has changed in the post-war years, and the effects on ordinary lives. Wonderful.

In the East End of London in 1944 a V2 rocket hits a Woolworth's store, with significant loss of life. In this book, the author imagines the lives of five of the children as they might have turned out had they not been killed.
Unfortunately I found this book somewhat disappointing. The premise was intriguing and the first part of the book interesting, but as it progressed I found the rest of the book uninspiring. So much so that it took a very long time to complete.

A very enjoyable read from Francis Spufford, with well developed characters that you want to know more about and find out further what drives them. Each character could have their own novel, and it's this richness and variety of life that really comes across for me in this book. There are notable absences in their life stories, but this only piques curiousity and doesn't detract from the wealth of what is shared. Naturally, characters and places overlap and weave together over time. These patterns and collisions are a useful hook to keep the reader engaged and connected. Indeed, I felt like I was part of Woolies myself having been the fly on the wall at the start.
A very gifted story teller.

An alternative life for each of the five children who died when a bomb hit Woolworths. The précis was tantalising as was the cover and I felt sure I’d love this book. Sadly this wasn’t the case at all and I was thoroughly bored by it. I knew this would happen after wading through the tedious first few pages. Read enough to be able to say that this novel wasn’t my cup of tea at this time and couldn’t continue with it. No doubt I’m in the minority here and the book will have plenty of fans who will enjoy reading it but not me though - sorry!

Francis Spufford is on brilliant form in this quietly spellbinding novel. Beginning with a tour-de-force, millisecond-by-millisecond description of a German V2 rocket falling on a London branch of Woolworths in 1944, killing everyone in the store and many around it, it takes off into a version of the ensuing years in which five of the young children killed in the blast grow into adolescence and adulthood. Spufford doesn't put a foot wrong in his account of the children's lives as the twentieth century rolls on: his eye for small social detail is brilliant, and his understated empathy for the small disappointments and huge changes that the characters go through is inspiring. He loves these characters, and makes us love them too, despite their flaws, their human fallibility, their absurd hopes and desperate dreams. I found myself often in awe of his writing, wanting to re-read paragraphs and pages for the sheer pleasure of seeing a genius at work.

Unfortunately I found this book pretty hard going and its the first one I have not been able to finish. The premise of the book sounded great but it just wasn't me. It does seem to be like marmite, people with love it or struggle.

I found this a bit of an up and down read. It was interesting in patches. I really liked the premise of the book, and having loved Golden Hill was keen to jump in. It brought some unwelcome reminders of Thatcher’s Britain and I generally found the whole book too pedestrian for my tastes. Many thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book.

Sorry to say that I struggled a bit with this one, but was glad that I persevered, as it came through in the end. Don't give up, its worth a read

We've all asked "what would have happened if things had been different?"

And this book explores that concept. Characters who were killed, but what would have happened if they had lived?

In parts heart-warming, in others heart-breaking, you follow 5 people through the lives they could have had.

A very well-written book, an enjoyable read.

I struggled with this book a little bit, not because it wasn’t a beautiful story, it really was but because historical fiction is out of my comfort zone, I do however like to stretch myself and I’m glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed this story, wonderful, heartwarming and thought provoking. Well written, well done.

Gorgeous vignettes of five lives in London, with an entirely pointless framing device that can thankfully be ignored. Spufford really brings both his characters and the past 70 or so years to life, both delving into minutiae and zooming out to detail how the city has changed. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

An interesting alternative history/what if time loop set in WW2 and its aftermath, speculating on the lives of those who survive a bombing. Great for those who enjoyed SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO by Lionel Shriver.

Set in world war 2, this novel focuses on the concept of 'what if'. A bomb drops and the story is about if the victims survived. I like the concept of alternative lives, so I enjoyed the book a lot as I also love the writer's style.
It was an absorbing story.

A wonderful exploration of 'what if?' Spufford creates a tapestry of five lives that were cut short, each veering off in different directions and representing deviating experiences of life in the UK. His commentary on modern Britain is a pleasure to read and Spufford's style sings out from the page as usual.

Francis Spufford's writing career started with beautifully written non-fiction, and took a turn towards fiction with the caper, Golden Hill, set in 18th Century New York, which I also enjoyed - not least for its remarkable opening sentence.

This book takes a different, more meditative turn, imagining the lives that five children, killed in a German V2 rocket attack during the Blitz, could have taken - if only they had survived. It is a remarkable tour de force with a strong redemptive feel. I recommend it to readers.

From the start it seemed written as a screenplay, with the slow motion V-2 to be visualised on a screen. But then the story matured into an interesting ‘what would’ve been’; different people, from similar beginnings, but very different outcomes.
As we revisit them every fifteen years, their lives growing richer or poorer, changing in unexpected ways. Just like real life - who knows what the future will bring us?
Joyful and depressing in turn...it works.