I really loved the concept of this one… and perhaps that is the very reason I am so disappointed. As the story begins, we meet five children in Woolworths in 1944 just seconds before a bomb falls on the shop. The book then follows what would have happened in the lives of those children had that bomb not hit them. Intriguing, no? But, then, that bomb is pretty much forgotten for the rest of the book (well, the portion that I got through anyway), leaving the story as just an account of these five children and the adults they became, much the same in terms of plot to many, many other stories about people whose lives intersect at various points. Had that been what I was expecting, then fine – even if I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters or grow to care about their lives. However, having the idea of a “Sliding Doors” / “Butterfly Effect” / “It’s a Wonderful Life”-type examination of how this one event affected everything that followed in mind when starting this novel, I was left feeling a little short-changed.

I can definitely see why others would enjoy following the lives of these individuals as they grow and adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves. The writing and scene setting are certainly cleverly done. However, this one was not for me, I’m afraid.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Really sorry but I found this book very confusing and a bit boring.

Was really looking forward to reading this but wasn’t what I expected.

A wonderful book about lives unlived. A huge what if of a book. I couldn't wait to read this after Francis Spufford's first novel set in a very undeveloped New York full of character and adventure. This book is again historical. Set in the aftermath of the second world war it tells the lives of 5 children in a fictional south London borough as they grow up through the 20th century. Amazing descriptions. Moving. Excellent study of characters living real lives, all amplified by the proximity and inevitability of death. A daring take on time, fiction and what it means to be alive and human..

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford is the author’s second novel following his 2016 debut Golden Hill. Set in the fictional south London borough of Bexford, it imagines the lives of five people at 15-year intervals over the second half of the 20th century if they hadn’t been killed by a V2 rocket at a Woolworths shop in 1944 when they were children (based on a real attack in New Cross). There is a lot packed in with the highs and lows of the lives of all five characters across an important period of social history in Britain. However, as a work of speculative fiction, it’s a bit unsatisfying because Spufford doesn’t introduce any other alternative “what if?” paths for the characters other than their fate in the first chapter. I can see the point Spufford tries to make about all the things the characters go on to do in their lives, but the concept doesn’t strike me as entirely necessary. Without the knowledge that they could have been snuffed out in an alternative life, it is simply a novel about five people all from the same area of London. Many thanks to Faber and Faber for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

A V2 rocket explodes in the Woolworths shop in the London Borough of Bedford, killing many people in the shop and neighbouring streets, including 5 children. But what if, in a parallel universe, the bomb didn’t explode. What would happen to these children as they grow older?

Light Perpetual started off introducing that fateful day in November 1944, when a V2 rocket really did hit the Woolworths, and many people were killed. Sadly, I felt the intensity of the action drop off as the children’s futures were told. Split over 5 different ages, from 5 to 65, the only real link I could find to the beginning of the story was an occasional glimpse of a bright light or shining in the sky (hence, I presume, the title). Unfortunately, the characters stories didn’t seem to connect together and so it was all rather bitty and confusing.

Sadly not for me, but if you want a story about 5 children who grew up during World War II and then went on to have normal, not particularly exciting lives, then this might be the book for you.

The synopsis of the book appealed to me as I've often wondered about the loss of life in war. What marriages never occured, the children that were never born, inventions not created, books not written etc etc.
I had to keep reminding myself all the way through the book that these things never happened, that it was events that could have been. This made for some very bittersweet moments when things went really well for the characters and I was pleased for them. But then I realised that they'd died and hadn't really experienced it!
It's a very thought provoking book. You don't have to be a inventor or author, say, to make a big impact on others. Sometimes it's just tiny acts of kindness (or badness!) that can change another person's life, someone who you just reach out to for a split second.
The writing is quite descriptive, which normally I'm not a fan of, but here it really set the scene for me and I got transported to the various times and places. The chapters are split up amongst the five main characters and I enjoyed learning about the lives they could have had. I didn't get annoyed when the story moved on to the next character as I was keen to know how they were faring. Although their lives were out of the ordinary, I was gripped!
I highly recommend this book and it would make a great TV drama.

Not the ‘alternative timeline’ novel I was hoping for but a solid tracing of very ordinary lives. Well written and poetic prose

What happens if fate intervenes? Instead of dying in a V2 attack, five young lives are allowed to continue. For Vern, Alec, Ben, Jo, and Val the rest of their lives are also affected by fate, the ups and the downs. However, it is all rooted in that part of South London where they were born.
From the mesmerizing first few pages where Spufford goes into detail about the explosion I was gripped. There was a bomb that hit Woolworth's in New Cross and destroyed lives but V2 rockets were unreliable and here an alternative narrative is created. The story doesn't shy away from drama, mental illness is handled sensitively, later love carefully and the excesses of success and failure are described. Each character is sympathetic in their own way and this is a magnificent book.

This book is about the lives some children might have had if they hadn't been killed by a bomb in London during World War 2. It revisits them every 15 years afterwards. This is similar to the TV Series 7 Up (Michael Apted) Through the lives of Jo, Val, Alec, Ben and Vernon we see the changing times in Britain, social and political. We also see how their choices take them along one path, when another might have been available.
It might be interesting to read again following each character or have a hardback copy so that you can flick back to a former time .
Two characters Jo and Vernon have music in common . For Jo she is able to "see" music in a synaesthetic way but for Vernon (seemingly a cold hearted self made man) music gives him access to emotions that he cannot cope with in real life.
Val meanwhile has a life shaped by one bad choice with dire consequences. Alec 's story is probably the one which charts political changes and social the most .
I probably was most interested in Ben's story. He has a time of struggling with his mental health but later his life changes as he is welcomed into a family from a different ethnic background to his own.

Who doesn't wonder about the life someone might have led if they hadn't died young or even if you had made different choices.

Spufford's prose is rich and beautiful and his characterization nuanced and empathetic..

Though I enjoyed the beauty of the writing and the lyrical language and sense of place, I found the promise of the first chapters was not borne out in the rest of the story. That being said, I'm sure many readers would enjoy this meticulous record of a specific time and place and the repercussions of a tragic incident in history.

An engaging and unique storyline. Lovely to read something very different. It did remind me a little though of a Mitch Ablom book
I liked the 5 different perspectives and the way the novel unfolded
3.5/5 stars

light Perpetual is a lesson on what might have been. A bomb goes off in Woolworths in WW2. It affected the lives of many in the area. This novel imagines the lives of some of the people who died. It follows its characters through school and into Fleet Street and across the globe to America. it is a reminder that every life matters.

It took me a long time to get into this book. In fact I was probably about one third of the way through it before I really began to enjoy it. Based on a real life incident where 168 people were killed by a V2 bomb in 1944, Spufford imagines that 5 children go on to live their lives as if they hadn't been killed before their fifth birthdays (nb although 15 children were killed in the real incident, the fictional children are just that - fictional). He allows us glimpses into their lives every fifteen years or so until they reach the age of 70. But these children are no George Baileys whose heroic deeds make a difference to so many. It is the very ordinariness of their lives that is so fascinating. Unlike It's a Wonderful Life, no little brothers are saved from drowning and no one steps in to save their town from the nasty clutches of a greedy banker. Instead we get the faults and defects of five distinctly unheroic human beings.

There are many strengths in this novel. One of these is the characterisation. Each person has a distinct voice and this is most welcome. Too often we read books focalised through more than one person and yet there is nothing to distinguish one from the other. Another strength is in its observations. There is one scene where one character is standing on a Tube platform looking into a train and he imagines the lives of the commuters. It is wonderfully done. Finally there is much to be admired in the writing although it does take a little while to become used to it. Initially I thought it overblown but I was won over by the end.

Definitely one to re-read and savour. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Reading the synopsis of this book I was hooked before I even started reading. Beginning a book with killing the main characters and then imagining if that hadn't happened was definitely something I wanted to read.

Beginning to read the book I quickly picked my favourites of the 5 characters but loved reading about each and every one through each time period.

The writing was superb and evoked such amazing imagery of London throughout the years. By the end of the book I wished we were able to see the in-between of the years written about because I did not want to leave these characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

In this book, Spufford does a great job of pointing out that everyone's life makes a difference, by exploring what might have happened had 5 children not died in a bomb explosion during the Second World War. It's a novel that takes you through British post-war social history ane gives you a glimpse of the various changes that have happened. However, I couldn't help thinking that Kate Atkinson explored this concept much better in her novel Life After Life, and I was also slightly uncomfortable with the plot point where one of the characters gets saved from his mental health crisis by an eminently capable Black woman. The writing is good and the stories are interesting, but it lacks something for me.

This came up for request only a month or so after I had read Golden Hill which I really enjoyed. It takes as its starting point the V2 bombing of Woolworths on New Cross Road on a busy Saturday lunchtime in 1944, vividly describing the destruction which killed 168 people including 33 children. Francis Spufford has imagined what lives five children aged 4 or 5 at the time of the bombing might have led, giving us snapshots of each over the years.
It’s exciting when a writer can capture so well the thoughts and perspectives of such a diverse cast of characters as we encounter them from primary school onwards, close to their south-east London roots and further afield. Ben’s inner monologue is a particularly impressive description of what a disturbed mind tells its owner. I like Francis Spufford’s dense descriptive sentences. These are not pages to be skipped through; this is writing to be drawn in to. All too quickly, though, it was over, ending with a glorious echo of the mantra from Trainspotting. Beautiful writing.

Spufford is a wonderful writer and his prose and dialogue is excellent. But plot-wise, this missed the mark for me. I didn't see the point of the conceit. It was such a clever idea - what would have happened if this group hadn't died - and I expected so much more from it. Alternatives or parallel lives or something. But the plot is simply linear and I wasn't sure what the device actually added to that. This was in end a book about the lives of a group of people. He could have done that without the deaths at the start, surely?

When I first started reading ‘Light Perpetual’ by Francis Spufford I seriously doubted if I would be able to continue. I persevered however, and was so glad that I did. I really enjoyed how the lives of the characters developed over the years.

‘Something else…and something else again…’

The author vaporises his five central characters, all young working-class children, in a V2 bomb attack on south London in the opening pages of the novel. Then he resurrects them in a ‘what if’ scenario which removes the bomb attack and spares the children to live out a normal life span. But what is ‘normal’?

Twins Val and Jo, one seeking rough companionship, the other musically talented, Alec, clever but impetuous, Vern the bully whose heart is melted by opera, and gentle Ben afflicted with mental and emotional problems see their lives uncoil and, in some cases unravel through the Twentieth and early Twenty First centuries. Being spared the bomb is simply a road not taken; early promise thwarted, wrong decision making, lack of confidence, overconfidence, health issues, luck - sometimes good, often bad – all draw the reader’s emotional response. We know that choosing a career as a typeset worker for a newspaper in the 1970s is not a good idea, or that investing in property before a crash will be a successful venture, but the reader, like the author, has the advantage of hindsight. Just like the audience at a Greek Tragedy, we can see the inevitability of disaster and can do nothing to stop it coming. If the bomb does not hit you, then life will.

Francis Spufford writes his immensely moving novel in bravura style. He is a master of words and their employment. In On Golden Hill he began with a sailing ship arriving in New York harbour, zig-zagging back and forth like an example of Zeno’s paradox, which logically proves you can never arrive at a destination, as at every point on a given journey, the traveller must cross a half way point…ad infinitum. In the opening chapter of Light Perpetual, he employs the same paradox, this time the journey is of the V2 bomb constantly halving its distance to its target, slowing the narrative right down to slow motion, before the inevitable impact. For the sheer versatility of his writing alone, this novel is a joy to read, but the humanity and sympathy of its story raises it to a yet higher firmament.

Light Perpetual is an engaging book following the lives of five main protagonists. The hand of fate and the consequence of decisions, non-action etc is crafted well by Spufford and feels very realistic with a keen sense of place. The warts and all focus on everyday 'normal' characters is refreshing and the inclusion of distinctly unlikable protagonists is well judged.

The premise of a 'life reboot' / 'what if' scenario where a bomb never lands on the Bexford Woolworths is for me slightly redundant as removing this initial section has no significant impact on your enjoyment of the book. in conclusion, the exploration of everyday lives lived through all their ups and downstairs though well honed is nothing I haven't read before.