Come Again

A very sweet story. If you're looking for a story with all the feels and a wonderful narrator pick up this gem of a book. I find it really soothing having someone else tell me a story. Happy listening!

“Just as a doctor records the time of death, Kate had recorded love at first sight. 7:44 pm.”

This book has a trope that I will read again and again and again - time travel love story. We follow Kate who is recently a widow after her husband Luke dies unexpectedly of a brain tumor. After exploring her “today” which is rather sad as she is on the brink of suicide due to her heavy grief. She falls asleep and wakes up in her 18-year old body on her first night that she moved into college… which is also the night that she and Luke first met. She now has to decide if she can fall in love twice with the same man.

This book explores the concept of destiny, happiness, and being present in the moment. I liked the avenue the book took to explain time travel and ended up giving this unique romance ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.

I think about this idea a lot. I had an interesting journey in marrying my husband after dating young… and then years of friendship… following by “the real deal.” I sometimes wonder how differently things would have played out if I had made different choices, but since I am happy with where I am at today it’s more of just a fun thought experiment than anything else!
QOTD: Do you ever think about how you could have made different decisions to impact your life today?


Thank you so much to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for this ALC. It was my first Netgalley audio and I really loved it.

OH MY GOD, THIS BOOK. I loved it so so so much. I don't think my review will do it justice. Where do I begin?!
I had the audiobook version of think thanks to Netgalley. I listened to the entire thing in a day and a half. I was absolutely hooked from the start. And the fact that Olivia Colman does the reading, oooh it's so good.
I loved how Webb described each character, I genuinely felt like I got to know them and became rather invested. It's quite an emotional book and I was gripped through the entire thing. Very witty and I chuckled a lot through the book. Honestly, this book is just heartwarming. You get so invested in the characters, and I just want more. It ended really nicely, I won;t go into details as it will spoil it! But despite it finishing in such a nice way, where I didn't feel like it was a cliffhanger or anything like some books, I still wanted more. I really hope this gets made into a movie or show.
Eeverybody needs to go and read this book ASAP!

My, oh my, what a magical, emotional tale. "Come Again" is a beautiful audio/book about love and loss which uses my favorite concept of time travel.

I feel so much love for this book, but I'm having a bit of a hard time processing my thoughts and emotions. I think this is because the author truly hit the jackpot with the issues he deals with: love, grief for a loved one, as well as sacrificing part of oneself for a relationship and the other person. In the time of the pandemic, and as a young woman preparing for engagement, I have been thinking about these issues a lot lately. Frankly, I generally fear reaching for any books dealing with grief, but after reading the blurb I sensed that I would relate to the protagonist, Kate - and heck, was I right.

I would highly recommend this book (with an amazing narrator in the audio) if you need an emotional read with a healthy dose of magic.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Come Again is the first novel by award-winning British actor, comedian and author, Robert Webb. The audio version is brilliantly narrated by actor, Olicia Colman. Nine months widowed, and all Kate Marsden wants to do is drink herself daily into oblivion, where at least she can dream of Luke. If the dream of their first encounter is never quite right, her memories always are.

Since Luke was suddenly taken by a sneaky, slow-growing tumour he’d had since before they met, Kate has withdrawn, merely existed, worked her IT job on auto-pilot. But when her mourning fog momentarily lifts, she uncovers an explosive piece of information: something with far-reaching effects for the world. Trouble is, deciding what to do when you are grief-stricken, suicidal and half-drunk is an undertaking she’s not sure she can face.

On reaching the milestone of ten thousand days since they first met, Kate decides the appropriate step is to stop living; just one more Luke dream, and then she’ll take the pills and the vodka. But when Kate wakes, it’s in her single bed in Benedict College, in her eighteen-year-old body, on the day she first met Luke Fairbright, back in October 1992. It’s not a dream.

Her immediate instinct is to save Luke: “it was perfectly straightforward. She was going to convince Luke that she was from the future and he needed to get a tumour removed from his brain otherwise he would drop dead at the age of forty-seven in his kitchen, which was incidentally also her kitchen because she was his wife. Fine.”

And if that’s not challenge enough, another tiny problem becomes apparent: her forty-five-year-old brain is more irritated than charmed by nineteen-year-old Luke, his lies, affectations and his pretentious manuscript. For his part, Luke is both sceptical and angry about the bizarre and rather disturbing revelations this (clearly crazy) total stranger dumps on him.

What an absolute treat Webb’s first novel is! He gives the reader a clever plot, marvellous characters, witty dialogue and an action-packed finale that features Russian thugs, a car chase involving a fleet of London cabbies, an avant-garde Shakespeare production, MI5 and quite a lot of karate. It is filled with generous helpings of brilliant British humour, much of it quite black, especially the insults, though some readers may object to the expletives.

Webb’s descriptive prose is wonderfully evocative: “The main body of the bar was the setting of a vast, ongoing brawl between broken tiles, strip-lighting and chipped Formica. The walls were brown, but with that hint of yellow that gives horse manure its element of drama. Around the edges were a series of semi-circular ‘booths’ featuring red plastic banquettes and tiny, quivering tables guaranteed to immediately spill any drink they came into contact with. The metal chair legs had all lost their rubber stoppers years ago and the effect of a hundred of them scraping against the ‘terracotta’ floor was – until you learned to tune it out – what insanity might sound like if it lived with a dentist. It was a room that couldn’t hear itself think and which understood no smells but tobacco and last night’s beer. Kate felt immediately at home.”
This is an outstanding debut novel and whatever Webb puts his hand to next will be eagerly anticipated.
This unbiased review is from an audio copy provided by NetGalley and Hachette Audio

I usually find books focusing on time travel to be too unrealistic to enjoy. However, this sweet story about a widow that suddenly finds herself back at the night where she met her husband. The author captured the beauty of the second chance she received and also the heartbreak that she endures. This is well written with likable characters.

Kate fell in love with Luke instantly when she was nineteen on the very first night at Uni. Twenty eight years later, the love of her life is gone- a brain tumor. How can she reconcile her new life- devoid of her husband? Was there anything they could have done? These questions circle around in her thoughts constantly. Every day is a struggle- she no longer takes care of herself, has closed herself off from all her friends, and now finds herself without a job. Everything has fallen apart, and there is only to welcome the end…
Then one morning she wakes up in the wrong bed… the wrong room… the wrong body. Kate finds herself, once again, meeting Luke and her friends- given a chance to save her husband. The thing is, he isn’t the man she lost; not really. He is nineteen year old Luke with all the annoying habits. She is no longer starry eyed nineteen year old Kate, but Kate in her forties- a Kate that hasn’t got the patience for bullshit. Still, if she can do everyting exactly the same, if they can fall in love again… maybe she can save him. Maybe they can find out about the tumor in time. It’s worth a shot, right?

I loved this story! I got it yesterday as an early release audiobook from Netgalley and Hachete Audio, and I have to admit that I didn’t think I would be able to finish it in time- less than 24 hours to get through an audiobook is a stretch and not one I would have thought I could do, but I was just so excited! The premise is one that, on the surface has been done before- the timetravel to save one’s dead love- but there are so many other layers and interesting nuances! There’s also the fact that I love Kate- even when she’s prickly and at the end of her strength, talking to a mouse and surrounded in filth. Her reaction to her newly found widow status seems natural, if heartbreaking. Her reaction to young Luke and friends is amazing. I love the interactions- how they all got on together. I also love that she didn’t make it easy- that Luke didn’t just accept everything, get well, marry her and live happily ever after without any questions- and that Kate could have her own questions. More than anything I loved Tobey- we all need one in our lives.
This book was packed with emotion- sadness, grief and laughter. I was charmed by it. While I will be buying this book, I don’t know if it will be the audiobook- this seems like one I would rather read through. It’s a great story with a good flow to it- it doesn’t hurt that there’s never a dull moment. I loved the story lines, and could not get enough of the characters. For me, this is a five star book.
On the adult content scale there’s a lot of language, and drinking, along with some violence and mild sexual content. I would still say it was apropriate for any reader above, say, 13. Let’s give it a three.
I feel very blessed to have been given an early release audiobook from Netgalley and Hachette audio in exchange for an honest review. My thanks!