As Cynthia Swanson, the debut novelist of this trippy tome, has said herself: “In real life, we don’t get to experience ‘the butterfly effect’ --- that is, we cannot know what might have been, had a single, outwardly small circumstance been altered…. But it’s impossible to know truthfully what our parallel universe might be like.” In THE BOOKSELLER, Swanson tries to apply that “what if?” moment to the life of Kitty Miller, a happily single young professional who experiences another life in her dream world and wonders if that is the place where she is really supposed to exist.

Yes, I was confused at first, too. Dreams are dreams, and they don’t usually make it over the line into the world of reality without mental illness or the help of drugs. However, like the movie Sliding Doors, THE BOOKSELLER attempts to find a portal between real life and dream life that leads into the perfect future for this character. Swanson has also mentioned that she set this trip into chaos theory in the early ’60s in order to take advantage of the ways in which women’s lives were beginning to change back then. The novel tries to find literary ways to prove this strange and dissonant theorem. Basically, the hypothesis is that nothing is as permanent as it appears. But does that make one thing more real than another? Find out.

"I think that any reader is going to find this adventure from first-timer Swanson a real kick and a treat, especially when we are all imagining a world far away from the nasty winter that continues to hang on.... THE BOOKSELLER is a fun ride, an e-ticket for readers of all kinds."

Kitty is a woman whose life doesn’t fit the intense strictures of the world she comes from --- she is not married with kids but is living a fulfilling life as a bookstore owner, as a woman in the 1960s who lives with complete control over her every move. There is no one else there --- friends and family, sure, but no special love, no man to whom she has tied her sails. Instead Kitty enjoys her life without issue. Until she finds herself creating a dream alter ego and then decides to attempt to reconcile her reality with that tantalizing alternative to which she turns in at night.

In her dreams, it is 1963. Kitty is no longer Kitty but Katharyn Andersson. She is married to Lars, a good man with whom she shares a special love. With gorgeous kids, a perfect and elegant home and loyal friends, life is everything Kitty once believed she wanted. But this is her dream life, not her real life, and over time it becomes something even more.

Kitty considers herself falling into an imaginative rut, retreating at night into this world of her own making. However, as that life becomes more and more golden, Kitty realizes that perhaps that is the life she should be living. And how will she go about manifesting that if this is true? That’s where THE BOOKSELLER kicks into high and imaginative gear.

One of the benefits of this twisted puzzle of a book is the array of literary experiences that are mentioned and that make some imprint on the characters, since this is Kitty’s real-life occupation. If you love books, and I bet you do, you will be thrilled by the books of the era that make appearances here, from Salinger to Cold War classics like FAIL SAFE. Every title that is mentioned manages to set a context for the overall arch of the drama here as well as remark on the context of the time. In a changing world, it becomes only natural that Kitty imagines a new horizon for herself as well.

I don’t know how much more I can tell you in order not to ruin the surprise of the book. I think that any reader is going to find this adventure from first-timer Swanson a real kick and a treat, especially when we are all imagining a world far away from the nasty winter that continues to hang on. When spring arrives, it is time to imagine new possibilities for your own life. You can share that desire for the unknown and the new with Kitty as she tries to choose between the life of her everyday and the life of her nighttime.

THE BOOKSELLER is a fun ride, an e-ticket for readers of all kinds.