A Mother Dimension by Mink Elliot

Somehow I’ve managed to read a book during the Summer holidays! The latest book from the Bahlsen Book Club was A Mother Dimension by Mink Elliot which she self-published last year. I received this book in digital format which was perfect for the summer holidays as I love reading books on my iPad and it’s gone everywhere with me over the past few weeks.

Kate O’Reilly, mother of three on the cusp of her 45th birthday, has got a thing about the past. Her husband, Seamus and long-standing best friend, Georgia, both call her chronic nostalgia an obsession – but Kate sees it as her safety harness, her private Prozac, her coping mechanism of choice. Because when being a wife and mother is weighing her down, making her feel trapped and overwhelming her, all Kate needs to do is take a quick trip down memory lane – to where the music was better, her social circle was wider, her self-esteem higher, her hair thicker and her waist much, much thinner – and voila! All is right with her world again.
But when a freak electrical storm propels her back in time to 1996 for real, Kate can’t believe what’s happening. Soon, however, she’s elated, because this is the moment she’s been waiting for all these years – her chance to re-live those good old days and actually do all those things she’s been fantasising about.
Armed with little more than the optimism of youth, the benefit of hindsight, a taut-again tummy and just the one chin, Kate sets out to discover what might have happened if she’d only done things a little bit differently. And why some things really are best left in the past…

I liked the original concept of this book. As a parent I can’t help but think back to my child-free days. Late nights of my choosing, lie-ins, adult company and money – what’s not to miss from those days? A Mother Dimension is funny and I found it quite nostalgic. Kate goes back to 1996 which was my second year at University and I could relate to the cultural references from the rivalry between Oasis and Blur, the first mobile phones and Euro 96.

Ok, the story is a little silly and far-fetched (think Back to the Future meets Sex and the City in London) but that’s what makes any book good if you are in need of a little light relief. There are lots of twists in the plot and it’s not as simple as Kate going back in time then coming back and appreciating what she had. I don’t want to give the story away but it’s a fun read.

And who wouldn’t want to go back and tweak their history just a little if they had the chance?!