What If It's You?
A Novel
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Everyone wonders about the one that got away . . . and thanks to an alternate reality tech project, one woman will get the chance to actually find out.
When Laurel Everett finds a ring in her longtime boyfriend Ollie's sock drawer, she should be thrilled . . . so why is she left wondering "what if?" Specifically, what if she'd taken up her work crush, Drew, on his offer of a date just after she and Ollie got together? Thanks to her job at tech giant Pixel, she might have a way to answer that question through the AltR project, which promises users a glimpse of alternate realities. Or it will, once the quantum computers it relies on get more powerful.
When the program actually works and Laurel wakes up five years into her life with Drew, she's fascinated . . . then increasingly horrified as she continues to slip between that world and her "real" life seemingly at random. As she moves back and forth between the two worlds, Laurel realizes choosing the right life might not be as simple as deciding between two men and the different visions of happiness they offer. And if she doesn't find a way to untangle herself from the quantum mess she's unleashed, she might wind up stuck in the wrong life, or worse, deleted entirely like a faulty line of code. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gagnon (Scenes of the Crime) puts a high-tech twist on a classic love triangle in this clever contemporary. After Laurel Everett finds an engagement ring in her boyfriend Ollie's sock drawer, she deliberately sabotages their dinner date at a Boston restaurant, hoping to avoid a public proposal, as she is unsure if she is ready for marriage. Her fear of commitment is partly triggered by her lingering crush on handsome Drew, her coworker at tech company Pixel. When Laurel tries out an alternate reality program designed by Drew, she finds herself catapulted into a different world where she and him are in a long-term relationship. A glitch leaves her randomly toggling between these two realities, forcing her to decide which life—and which man—is right for her. Gagnon does not draw this mystery out long; Laurel fairly quickly realizes the depth of her feelings for one of her two suitors, and then the central plot becomes more about how she'll break free of the AR to stay with him. The romance sparkles, and Gagnon makes the science believable enough to suspend disbelief. Readers are sure to be sucked in.
