Cassandra in Reverse

In Smale’s appealing adult debut (after the YA novel Love Me Not), a London woman discovers an ability to travel back in time. Cassie Penelope Dankworth is prickly and uncompromising, traits that lead to her being fired by her London PR firm and dumped by her boyfriend, Will. She also has autism, a fact her intolerant coworkers wish was disclosed to them before she was hired. After these events appear to happen, however, Cassie realizes she’s in a time loop—her boss calls her “sweetheart” and she still has a job. As she learns to manipulate her newfound ability, she muses on her power to change the story of her life. Smale then leads readers through a tale of Cassie’s habitual time travel, which produces multiple outcomes from the same situations. Some of these are mundane—a slice of bread is burned, then toasted perfectly; keys are forgotten, then remembered—while others are consequential, such as Cassie’s introduction of Will to her sister, which leads to their romance and bitter feelings for Cassie. Though Cassie’s time tweaks can be hard to follow, her narration beautifully evokes her inner life (“I rarely understand what another human is thinking, but I frequently feel it: a wave of emotion that pours out of them into me, like a teapot into a cup”). This is a delight. (June)