One Day - David Nicholls

Emma Morley is smart, kind, geeky looking, funny and is one of those girls that you know will work hard until success comes to her.

Dexter Mayhew would be smart (if he put his mind to it), can be kind (but can also be cuttingly unthoughtful), is anti-geek (think lad, think extrovert, think centre-stage, think big-head), is popular (in-crowd, TV presenter, drink, drugs, girls, rocknroll) and is one of those guys that success clings to without deserving or earning it.

They are pretty much opposites. 

They are also in love with each other. 

It would just be great if someone would tell Dexter this.

Em and Dex, best friends, practice an annual tiptoe dance around their feelings each year on St Swithens Day. Dexter inevitably has a new beautiful girlfriend in tow, a new gig in town, and increasingly less time and consideration for Emma. Emma, after academic success, is struggling to find her feet in the real world, still single, still geeky and getting a little bit fat.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, best friends... Emma is a successful teacher. Emma is dating, unsuccessfully. Dexter is perpetually drunk, a washed up TV has-been, only he hasn't realised this yet. He loses Emma's good opinion and she breaks away from him. They are both heartbroken.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, relative strangers, meeting only at weddings of mutual friends, awkwardly. Emma's no longer geeky, is coming into her own. Dexter is sober, has a fiancé, and a baby (pending). They miss each other. They gravitate back towards each other.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, best friends... Emma's living in Paris, an author. She's dating. A ruined (wife left him for his friend) but hopeful (he's coming to claim her) Dexter arrives in Paris. Emma has always been the chaser, now she's the chasee. But there's no denying it, she's only ever loved Dexter.

Fast forward four years. St Swithens Day...

Em and Dex, TOGETHER! Emma's married. Dexter's married. Emma's married to Dexter. Life is finally as it should be. Their futures are one. Big plans.

Then Emma dies.

Yup. Hit off her bike by a lorry. FML

Dexter chases her shadow around every place they've ever been, needing to feel her. He's lost. But this time Emma isn't there to help him find himself again. A world without Em is unknown to Dex. The only sense he can make of the world, is his daughter, Jasmine.

Dex and Jasmine... Dexter's world (with an Emma-Morley-shaped-hole) goes on.

Life After Life - Kate Atkinson

If you knew how the choices you make would shape your future, would you change it if you could? How could you be sure your alternative future would be better, more fulfilling, less painful than your current future? You couldn't.

Ursula is born. It's snowing outside, the doctor cannot reach her through the snow, he is not there to untangle her cord from around her neck, and Ursula dies.

Reset.

Ursula is born. It snowing outside, the doctor makes it through the snow and he arrives just in time. Ursula lives. Life moves on, younger siblings arrive, seasons change. Still Ursula's future is fragile. A family outing to the beach ends in tragedy after Ursula is caught in the current, Ursula dies.

Reset.

Snow, doctor, Ursula Lives. Beach, stranger saves girl caught in the current, Ursula lives. 

Ursula's many futures play out before our eyes, revealing life's delicacy. Somehow, eventually, one life leads to adulthood. However, Ursula's adulthood coincides with living in London during the Second World War. You want her to be able to save progress, like a computer game, so when another life is lost she doesn't have to start over. But she can't.

Reset, Reset, Reset.

Ursula becomes aware of the shadow of her previous lives, a haunting déjà vu which encroaches upon her, bringing with it a silent terror. She becomes able to dodge previous deaths, to push the boundaries of each life. Her adult lives diverge from their normal paths faster than her young lives. 

She lives several adult lives in London during the blitz. Then one in Germany, where she becomes known to an Eva Braun and her boyfriend, Adolf Hitler. 

After further London lives, and the loss of friends and families from the continued bombardment of England, a plan seeds in Ursula's mind, she is going to control her next life, and take it to Germany.

She chooses a life to choose another's death to choose to save hundreds of lives.

Ursula lives, Hilter dies, London lives.