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.