Ten great books with “What if?” moments

With more than two million copies of her books sold worldwide, number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning

author of I Let You Go, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It also won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2016.

Both Mackintosh’s second and third novels, I See You and Let Me Lie, were number one Sunday Times bestsellers. All three of her books were selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club.

Mackintosh’s latest novel is After the End.

At Lit Hub, she tagged ten of the best books with “what if?” moments, including:

Kate Atkinson, Life After Life (Back Bay Books)

Ursula’s lives are infinite, but each makes its mark in the world. Set against the backdrop of both world wars, Atkinson examples how fate and choice—sometimes as seemingly insignificant

as whether Ursula cuts across the fields or not—have the power to change the future.

Read about another entry on the list.

Life After Life is among Emily Temple's fifty best contemporary novels over 500 pages, Miriam Parker indisputably best dogs in (contemporary) literature, Liese O'Halloran Schwarz's top ten books about self-reinvention, Caitlin Kleinschmidt tagged twelve moving novels of the Second World War, Jenny Shank's top five innovative novels that mess with chronology, Dell Villa's top twelve books from 2013 to give your mom, and Judith Mackrell's five best young fictional heroines in coming-of-age novels.

--Marshal Zeringue