Featured debut author: Laura Barnett - The Versions Of Us

[EmilyMumsnet]

Our featured debut author this month is Laura Barnett with her smash-hit first novel, The Versions Of Us.

Eva and Jim are nineteen, and students at Cambridge, when their paths first cross in 1958. Jim is walking along a lane when a woman approaching him on a bicycle swerves to avoid a dog. What happens next will determine the rest of their lives.

We follow three different versions of their future - together, and apart - as their love story takes on different incarnations and twists and turns to the conclusion in the present day.

The Versions of Us, examines the unforseen consequences of the choices we make and traces the different paths that a life can follow, given the chance. What if one small decision could change the rest of your life?

This giveaway is now closed

Also - check out Laura's top ten writing tips for budding authors.

This giveaway is sponsored by Orion Books

Peace and love all, eh?

Sorry if we've caused a bit of confusion here There was an email sent out asking you to add the disclaimer (as above) but it was intended primarily for those who chose to review the books in the book reviews section to ensure it was really clear. Big thanks anyway to those who have gone on this thread and reviewed here -as gailforce says, it's really helpful to read the reviews and discussion on here and we're delighted you enjoyed the book as much as we did. (disclaimer: I am employed by mumsnet )

Haven't read the thread as I am about to start this. Thank you Mumsnet for my copy which arrived when I was away. I am really looking forward to it.

Duchess - regular contributors know why you wrote that!

Thankyou MNHQ for my copy of Versions of Us, it's a wonderful book.
Engaging, clever and beautifully written, every character is so well developed and rounded, and even the less likeable ones have redeeming features.
I had to keep going back to the early chapters at first to check which version was which but soon became embroiled in each story and voraciously raced through the chapters, keen to know how each strand developed.
I loved the insight into the characters relationships developing over their lifetimes - the initial excitement of getting together and the passionate early years but also the tragedies and challenges life throws at you along the way.
Take this book on holiday with you, it'll provide pure escapism and an emotionally engaging read.

Aw, was looking forward to this one but didn't get a copy, although I thought I entered quick, must be a popular one. Is it names out of a hat? Will put my name on the list at the library. Sounds great.

I have really enjoyed reading this novel. I can't remember the last time I have been so engaged with all of the principal characters in a novel.

The three versions of Jim and Eva's story provided us with a fully rounded picture of their personalities and like other reviewers I appreciated that there was no 'right' outcome of events. Like real life each relationship encountered different challenges and each character had to deal with the results of their decisions and those others chose to make.

There was just the amount of crossover of key characters between the three versions to carry through the threads from each story. Juggling the three story lines (and keeping track of the various children!) kept me on my toes.

I'd highly recommend this to other readers. Thank you Mumnet and W&N for sending such a beautiful edition.

A huge thank you to Mumsnet for my free copy of this book! I was absolutely delighted to receive it.

I felt it was a competent and well written novel, and the three different versions of the story, which I at first thought would be irritating, actually became engaging. None of the versions turned out the way I thought they would, but all three of them were plausible and well thought out, reflecting the different paths that life can take.

The writing is delicate, not overly descriptive, but just enough to convey the thoughts and feelings of the two central character Jim and Eva and to evoke the times in which they lived. However, as much as I enjoyed this novel, which I did a great deal, I found it didn't set me on fire. I didn't fully engage with the characters and by the end, I was getting rather tired of reading the lists of names of their friends and family in all the different versions and trying to remember which children belonged to which story. I also found it a tad overlong, but on the whole it was a satisfying read and I will certainly read more novels by Laura Barnett when they appear.

Mumsnet review – Versions of Us

Thank you so much for my copy of this really special book.
It got to me in an emotional way that no book has managed in quite a long time.
Eva and Jim, Jim and Eva, Eva and Jim. Their stories linked in time no matter what other events happen around them, living out their different lives in their own little “multiverses”. I liked to think of the physicists and cosmologists puzzling out the equations for each of the “Versions” in each separate universe. And what if this were true for all of us? Each seemingly small decision changing the course of our lives just a little but the same events and characters still dancing with us as we go along.
The brilliantly intertwined stories in each of the “Versions” may have had me struggling to keep up and keep the different stories separate. In my slightly addled brain I don’t think I quite managed it in the middle section. But, that didn’t actually seem to matter. The characters held their own in any case. Not just the two central characters either, Anton, Ted, Vivian and the others all became fully formed individuals, flawed but very human.
The fact that not everything worked out perfectly in any of the versions made the characters and their stories more believable and made the central premise of the possibilities of different “Versions” of our lives work so much better than if love had indeed “conquered all”.
The Paul Simon lyrics summed up the narrative beautifully. And moved me to tears.
Congratulations Laura Barnett. I can’t wait for your next book.
"I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion."

"I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion."

I have to confess that I am really struggling with this book. I was very much looking forward to it but have found it very difficult to get to grips with. I feel that if there were longer chunks dedicated to each version it might make it easier. I am on page 229, so still about 180 to go. Maybe I will find the last part easier to read. I also am struggling to identify with the characters and find Jim very unsympathetic especially in Version 1. I will continue and repost if I feel differently by the end. Am very disappointed to not enjoy it.

I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion.
I was really looking forward to reading this book and started it almost as soon as it arrived. In common with some of the previous reviews, I struggled to keep up with the thread of each version and had to keep looking back. This may be because I only tend to read in bed at night and so my concentration wasnt the best! Having said that, I did enjoy comparing the different scenarios and it did make me think about how our lives could be different just because of one small change. I would be interested in further novels by Laura Barnett as I think she did make the characters really believable and the problem I had was due to the format, rather than the writing.

Thank you again for my review copy.

Thanks for my free copy. Having finished the book and reflected upon it I think that the threads of the different versions of the lives worked well in the story. At times I did struggle to remember which version the chapter was as about and had to flick back. However I enjoyed the characters and it was thought provoking to the think about how lives can take different paths.

I was looking forward to reading this book, especially since I enjoyed One day a lot. The versions of us unfortunately failed to live up to the hype for me.

The versions of us tells the story or Jim and Eva, two Cambridge students in the late fifties. The book then tells three possible versions of that story with all the potential what ifs until pretty much the present day. Although this sounded like a good premise for a novel, I struggled to follow the thread of the three different versions, and would often get lost and have to go back a few chapters to remind myself of who was who etc. A review on GoodReads said they had to take notes to keep up with the book - I didn't go to that extreme but it would have definitely helped!

Also, the cliches. This book is full of cliches and for me this was the worst bit. They irked me so much. There is the writer, the actor, the artist character... the trouble teenager, the interfering mother-in-law, the cheating husband, Paris (!)... you name it! If you can get past that, and can follow the plot, you will love this book. I didn't.

Lastly, I never warmed to Jim, the male protagonist, and that was a major hurdle to overcome. While Eva, the female lead, is easy to empathise with in pretty much all versions of the story, Jim is a more ambiguous and flawed character. For this reason, I felt the author wasn't being fair on them (on Jim, and on Eva to a certain extent) and the relationship was somehow imbalanced.

However, not all was bad and the book felt very honest and true to life. All in all, I wouldn't read this book again but it would make a decent romantic light read.

I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion.

Thank you, Mumsnet, for my free copy.

I did enjoy this book and looked forward to picking it up. It has taken me a little while to finish, kept getting distracted, and I did have to do a bit of flicking back to check who was who. Not sure this would be very easy if this was read on a Kindle.

I too actually liked the version where Eva and Jim are not really together the best - which is a bit odd considering the book is really about their grand romance. I wonder if the author has bitten off a little bit more than she can chew? There is some really lovely writing in there but it is sometimes a bit buried beneath the twists and turns.

Once you got past the spot-the-difference type fun (ooh, Anton's party, will she wear the jumpsuit this time?) the book is actually quite sad and realistic, in that there is no magic fairy, and the extent to which you need to make your own luck. I did like the fact that the characters are followed until they are quite old, as opposed to fading into the sunset in their late twenties as in so many romantic novels.

I've made a slightly delayed, but good start on this now and can see I am going to have difficulty putting it down. Really enjoying following the three threads. Will report back with a review when I'm finished.

Thank you for my copy MNHQ and sorry I'm so slow at reading at the moment, so a bit of a delayed review

I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion.

I enjoyed this book and the idea of how your life can change based on small decisions was a good one for a novel.
I did find myself getting confused between the versions at times though. At points there were too many minor characters that I lost track of as they weren't detailed enough.
Overall though, a very enjoyable light read.

And as this is the discussion thread I'd also say I found Jim to be a bit of an arse to be honest. I know I was supposed to be rooting for him, but found it hard to do

Of the four books I was sent - this was the hardest to get into. The writing itself was good - evocative and engaging but having the different versions laid out as they were was a faff as I was finding it difficult to recall which version I was continuing to read.

I was disappointed with this book. But Meditation on Murder & Summer at Shell Cottage in the other hand were great, I finished the former in record time (while I was stuck in hospital with my newborn as he had phototherapy), the other one took a little longer to get through but was more my thing.

I might give it another go at some point - but seems like a waste of precious bookshelf space.

Aaagh. Ist time post from a tablet and it didn't appear on screen, grrr. I basically said thanks for the book. Tricky to keep versions straight so I just stopped trying and read each chapter as it appeared. Liked the main characters but felt lesser ones eg. the children were not developed and were just names. Won't be reading it again but I will pass it on to a friend as a good read. As said above, liked that all versions had good and bad bits. Makes you realise that even if you went back in time to change your own life course it won't necessarily be perfect.

Just finished reading it - thanks to MN for the free copy. This review is my own opinion.

I liked the central premise - how lives can be different based on a single event. But somewhat sad that the ways in which these lives could be different was essentially defined by who they had relationships with. I particularly found the definition of Eva disappointing, and you would have to go to some lengths to say this book passed the Bechdel test. Although Eva does (occasionally) speak to another female character about something other than a man, it's nearly always her mother about a child or a child about her mother. The need to move three versions of the story through sixty years of history did mean some of the stories were very abbreviated - Sophie's particularly, Jennifer seemed not really to have any, Sarah has anorexia for literally one page.

Like others I found the three versions quite hard to distinguish and should have written notes about the central event of each one (who Eva marries and when, basically ... ) to keep them separate in my mind.

I also found Jim a bit of an arse. It wasn't obvious what the attraction was. Eva was a bit too opaque, not really enough of her own person.

I did like the fact there was no real happy ever after, just three love affairs with a beginning and an end.

Overall I thought it was well written and thoughtful, I would definitely like to see what Laura Barnett does next.

(I was picked by MNHQ to review this book, which I received for free. This review is in my own words and reflects my true opinion.) Thanks!

"The Versions of Us" is well written book and is an interesting study of love and fate. I enjoyed the read but did find it difficult to keep the three versions of Eva's life straight in my head. Towards the end of the novel, I found I lost sympathy (and interest) in all of the versions and started to get a little irritated with the upper-middle class dramas and protagonists.

Thank you MN for the free copy of the book!

I thought it was fairly well-written (despite the occasional lazy cliche) and very absorbing. I read it very quickly over the course of two evenings. However, I can't say that any of the characters have stayed with me, most of them seemed to be stereotypes, and I found a it hard to really care about what happened to them. The story that moved me most was the relationship between Eva's parents.

I also found the constant effort of having to catch up with each story and compare it with the other versions rather irritating and distracting. It is the central gimmick around which the whole book is based but I think it could have been done more subtly to make it less jarring for the reader.

It was good as a light summer read though and reminded me of One Day.