CAN a human soul live on to love again after the physical
body dies? This is the intriguing and timeless question posed in an emotionally
charged and enthralling novel from an author best known for her lush historical
romances set in some of the world’s most exotic locations.
Jenny Ashcroft, whose books include The Echoes of Love,
Beneath a Burning Sky and Island in the East, writes here under the pseudonym
of Jennifer Ross (pictured below) to bring readers an epic, time-slip love story with a unique
twist which will break your heart and then put it back together.
Set across two timelines – an RAF station in wartime North Yorkshire and the glamorous film set of a Hollywood movie in 1989 – Every Lifetime After is a gripping mystery which draws together the lives of two women in two different eras who find themselves in each other’s stories. Packed with passion, heartbreak, nail-biting suspense, and the joys and tragedies of human life, and with a mesmerising thread of the supernatural, Ross’s enchanting page-turner explores the tantalising possibilities of afterlife and rebirth.
Amongst the crews is Squadron Leader Robbie Grayson, the man
Iris has loved since they were children together in the schoolroom. Robbie is
piloting the plane that bears the nickname Mabel’s Fury and Iris never told him
the secret that she has been harbouring for weeks… this time he’s not going to
come back, and she will be the reason why.
Fast forward to 1989 and we meet 34-year-old Claudia Baxter
who is searching for her past. Born on the Doverley estate, Claudia left the
area when she was only four and is now an A-list film star, but she is suffocating
in the faux-glamour of Hollywood and desperate for an escape.
Claudia’s new project is starring as a woman called Iris Winterton in an epic romance, The Bomber Boys, an adaptation of a bestselling book imagining what really befell the vanished crew of a Lancaster Bomber which disappeared into the darkness of a night in 1943 when it was tantalisingly close to the end of its tour of duty. And it’s not only her career that is putting pressure on Claudia… her real-life boyfriend and Hollywood heart-throb Nick Turner is playing opposite her as missing pilot Robbie Grayson at a time when she is still wrapped up in the grief of a recent miscarriage and mourning the loss of trust between them.
But when she arrives at Doverley for the start of filming, Claudia
is astonished and unsettled to find herself slipping not just into the story of
the film but back in time and into the life of Iris, Robbie’s mysterious
girlfriend who similarly disappeared without a trace, leaving not even a death certificate.
Pulled together by the past and the future, Claudia and Iris begin to unravel the threads of their connection. But in doing so, will they discover a secret bigger than they could ever imagine… and maybe even complete their story? The intertwined lives of Iris and Claudia lie at the heart of this sweeping, almost hypnotic, time-defying story which unfolds against two evocative backdrops and embarks on a multi-layered journey between two love affairs, one in the past and one in the present.
Cleverly plotted, beautifully written, and tingling with
tension, Ross’s tender and empathetic novel harnesses the women’s parallel
worlds and perfectly pairs the fears, uncertainties and dangers of wartime with
the stresses, strains and often overwhelming demands of a high-profile
Hollywood film set.
Every Lifetime After is a truly romantic feast which champions
the seductive premise of a love story for all time and takes us on an unmissable
emotional rollercoaster ride through the rigours of wartime and the pretensions
of stardom and movie-making as two lost souls hope to find each other in
lifetimes yet to come. Breathtakingly delicious!
(HQ, hardback, £16.99)
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