No angels, bells, or haloes, but only a vanishing prescient apple seller and a depressed John Pickett badly concussed in 1820s London in this tale worthy of Dickens. Feeling himself to be a failure, John is in the way of a horse and cracks his head. He then spends time in a world he does not understand because things are unfamiliar to him and he is unknown to those he knows because he has never been born. But he is who he is and is saddened by things as might have been while learning a few new things about himself and what he believed to be true. Very well done! I loved it!
Joel Froomkin continues to be the voice actor extraordinaire. ( )

Series: John Pickett Novella (Book 10.5 maybe)
Publication Date: 10/1/20
Number of Pages: 126

This take-off on It’s A Wonderful Life (or maybe Alice in Wonderland) was a delightful read. John Pickett is having a bit of a crisis – not a mid-life crisis because he isn’t old enough for that, but he’s feeling pretty useless. He has a rich, aristocratic wife, but he feels he is contributing absolutely nothing to the marriage – especially since he resigned as a Bow Street Runner to start his own inquiry agency. After a month with no clients – not one – he’s taken to roaming the streets in order to make Julia think he’s investigating something. He wonders, not for the first time, if it might have been better if he had never been born.

Well, hang on to your hats because he soon gets the answer to what might have been had he never been born – and it isn’t pretty in most cases. After being struck by a wagon and knocked unconscious, he ‘awakens’ to discover that nobody knows him – not his former coworkers, not his former mentor, nobody. He can’t find Julia because she doesn’t reside at what has been their home. People who had died are still alive, people who had been convicted of crimes are walking the streets, people who had happy endings – haven’t. John has well and truly traveled down the rabbit hole. There are lots of surprises in store for him as he attempts to navigate this hostile new world.

During a conversation with someone from his past, John learns some very important lessons about life.

** No one lives on this earth, no matter how brief their stay, without leaving some trace of themselves behind.

** Every life touches other lives, and if that touch is removed, then those lives are changed, sometimes in rather unexpected ways.

You can’t go wrong with this delightful novella. I’ve always admired John and Julia’s absolute love and trust for each other – and now we learn that same love and trust could hold true in more than one reality.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )