About the Book

Sometimes you have to go back, to move forwards.

Tabitha is stuck. She still lives in the small town she grew up in . . . the town she’s barely ever left.

So, when her dad drops a bombshell over their weekly Sunday dinner, Tabitha takes a look at her own life. She lives firmly in her comfort zone and doesn’t know how to break out. Sometimes she wishes she should go back and start it all again.

When she meets Bea, a free spirit like no one else she’s ever known with an ‘interesting’ sense of style, Tabitha quickly befriends her, recognising in Bea the change she’s been craving. But soon it becomes clear that more has changed than her new friend. Somehow Tabitha has been transported back to the 1980s.

With the chance to reinvent herself in another time, will Tabitha finally manage to move forward?

About the Author

LOUISE PENTLAND is the Sunday Times bestselling author of the Wilde novels trilogy and non-fiction book MumLife. She’s the number one parenting vlogger in the UK, with 9 million combined followers across her social platforms. Louise is the creator and host of the podcast Mothers’ Meeting, where she interviews fellow mums and discusses all things motherhood.

Louise featured on the ‘Sunday Times Top 100 Influencers’ list and was crowned as the number one ‘mumfluencer’ by Mother & Baby. She is also a UN Global Ambassador for Gender Equality and an NSPCC Ambassador for Childhood. Louise has filmed with an array of people, from Kim Kardashian to the Pope at the Vatican. She is also involved in the support and encouragement of childhood literacy with charity Bookstart, alongside Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.

Find Louise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

What I Thought

This book perhaps wasn’t quite was I was expecting going into it but I still enjoyed it and OMG the flashbacks to C&A, coming in from a night out with smoky hair, and shell suits! All of which I do not miss – lol.

Main character Tabitha is 26 and is living a pretty comfortable life. In fact so comfortable that I felt that the character read older than she was. She’s a vintage shop manager with a side hustle as a vintage upcylcler on the gram. She has a boyfriend – David, and there is starting to be talk of babies and marriage.

There’s really two inciting incidents – the first involving a revelation by her dad and the second a time travelling ring.

The time travel aspect was intriguing but it did take a while to get going. There was even a bit where she suddenly went from thinking that what had happened when wearing it was a bit odd, to confessing to her friend she thinks she has magical powers. That actually came a bit out of the blue and had me checking to see if I’d managed to skip a chapter.

The time travel to 1989 is not a permanent thing and instead is something that Tabby can control at will and as such wasn’t used as much as I was anticipating. I also guessed partially why it was happening but the book did manage to add an extra little twist that I didn’t spot until pretty late.

The female relationships were what worked best for me in this book. We had Tabby reconnecting with her mother differently after her dad’s revelation, her best friend Vivi mostly having her back – although there’s tension between them linked to David. And back in the 80s there’s fun and adventurous Bea who I actually liked a lot (and would read more about for sure).

Both inciting incidents do lead Tabby to learn different things and she begins to step outside her comfort zone aided by the female characters around her. I think some reviewers have perhaps felt that Tabby was a little passive but I think that emphasises her character’s arc throughout the book. And who says women have to be entirely independent and oomphy to be valid anyway?

The male characters were also varied – with some of them deserving a slap for their antiquated views – and I’m not talking about the ones from the 80s.

The final 50 pages were pretty emotional as we start to realise how everything across the two time lines fit together.

I almost wish the epilogue hadn’t been included and instead that we would get a follow up following Tabby after the end of the story – and maybe more importantly a prequel focusing on Bea.

Actually randomly I’ve just thought of this comparison – if you like the Mamma Mia movies I think you’d enjoy this.

I received a gifted ARC copy for the purposes of an honest review thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers and the publishers. Do check out the rest of the blog tour posts to see what everyone else thought.