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The Bookseller

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A provocative and hauntingly powerful debut novel reminiscent of Sliding Doors, The Bookseller follows a woman in the 1960s who must reconcile her reality with the tantalizing alternate world of her dreams.

Nothing is as permanent as it appears ...

Denver, 1962. Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She loves the bookshop she runs with her best friend, Frieda, and enjoys complete control over her day-to-day existence. She can come and go as she pleases, answering to no one. There was a man once, a doctor named Kevin, but it didn't quite work out the way Kitty had hoped.

Then the dreams begin.

Denver, 1963. Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, and good friends. It's everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted—but it only exists when she sleeps.

Convinced that these dreams are simply due to her overactive imagination, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. But with each visit, the more irresistibly real Katharyn's life becomes. Can she choose which life she wants? If so, what is the cost of becoming Katharyn? As the line between her worlds begins to blur, Kitty must figure out what is real and what is imagined.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 26, 2015
      In 1962, Kitty wakes in Katharyn’s bed next to Katharyn’s husband, Lars. Down the hall are Katharyn’s children: Missy, Mitch, and Michael. In the mirror, Katharyn’s reflection looks exactly like Kitty’s, and Kitty is able to recall specific memories and behaviors of Katharyn’s with disturbing accuracy. But Kitty and Katharyn are not the same—Katharyn is just the woman Kitty becomes in her dreams. In reality, Kitty is single, childless, and owns a floundering bookstore with her best friend, Frieda. She has pursuits and interests that Katharyn’s life has no room for. Initially believing that Katharyn is a figment of her imagination, a pleasant dream showing what married life could have been like, Kitty identifies the one moment that prevented her life from becoming Katharyn’s. Kitty’s uncertainty about which woman’s reality is real consumes her. Swanson masterfully crafts both Kitty’s and Katharyn’s worlds, leaving open the question of which of them is real until the final pages. Swanson’s evocative novel freshly considers the timeless question, “What if?”

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Kathe Mazur's successful narration of Swanson's debut focuses on a single middle-aged woman in 1962 who is known as both Kitty and Katharyn. Single Kitty Miller runs a bookshop with her best friend, Frieda, while Katharyn Andersson is what Kitty is known as everytime she falls asleep and dreams of another life. Mazur's smooth tone becomes almost seductive, making the listener want to know more about which life is the character's true reality. Mazur distinguishes between the characters' parallel lives with expressiveness and purposeful clarity. The contrast between Kitty's single life and Katharyn's married life becomes quite perplexing as the listener ponders how different choices can change one's life dramatically. D.Z. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

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  • English

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