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From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Beloved book-club favorite Haig (The Life Impossible, 2024) returns with a novel that looks back on one man’s life and how it might have gone wrong—or right. After he dies at 81, Wilbur Budd finds himself at a mysterious train station just after midnight. He encounters Agnes Bagdale, the proprietor of a bookshop where he spent his young life reading. Agnes tells him he’s on his way to eternity, but he must relive his life through the train’s windows. The train stops at important spots so he can join his younger self as a Ghost. Wilbur regrets many things, from the death of his brother to his obsession with work, but he most regrets losing his wife, Maggie. While stopped at their honeymoon in Venice, the Ghost wonders if there is a way to save their relationship, even if it means he will cease to exist. While this is not a direct sequel to The Midnight Library (2020), it is a sequel in spirit: written in the space between life and death, both novels consider the impossible ways a person might start over.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

An elderly man’s posthumous journey back through his life has unexpected consequences for several people, and lessons for everyone. It is a truth universally acknowledged that readers adore any novel set in a reading group, bookshop, or library, from the terribly sad (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, 2008) to the puzzle-heavy (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, 2012) to the downright clever (The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007). Haig, who’s already writtenThe Midnight Library (2020), mines a similar vein in this novel centered on a bookseller named Wilbur Budd; place this one in the seriously sentimental category. Wilbur dies at 81 just after receiving a call from his ex-wife, Maggie. He finds himself on a classic steam-train carriage, accompanied by a younger version of the woman who founded the bookstore he turned into a global conglomerate. As Mrs. Agnes Bagdale explains, he’s on a trip to significant places and events from his life, but he’s forbidden from interfering in them, thus possibly changing the course of other people’s lives. True to his maverick tendencies, Wilbur struggles with the three rules of the train (“You get on and off the train as required. You never try and speak to yourself. And you mustnever be there when you fall asleep”) and struggles even more mightily as he realizes that Maggie was his true love and lifelong lodestar. While some moments verge on maudlin, as when Wilbur and Maggie goggle at Venice during their honeymoon, these are tempered by quieter observations, as when Wilbur’s oldest friend, Charlie, tells him frankly during lunch at a trendy restaurant that his constant ambition is a failing. This isn’t a subtle book and it’s not trying to be; it’s urging readers to think about their own choices, wherever they find themselves. A shaky balance between saccharine and sage will nevertheless appeal to the author’s fans and readers seeking balm. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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Haig offers a touching companion piece to his 2020 novel The Midnight Library, this time following an 81-year-old bookstore chain owner who finds a second chance in the afterlife. Wilbur Budd has devoted himself to his business for decades, which caused him to neglect his wife, Maggie, and lose her many years earlier. She surprises him with a phone call, in which she expresses a desire to become friends again. Shortly after, he collapses and dies. In the afterlife, he finds himself at a train station and realizes he’s the same age as when he and Maggie honeymooned in Venice. The train that arrives is the full-size version of a toy train he had as a child. Aboard it is Agnes Bagdale, who owned the bookstore Wilbur frequented as a young boy. Agnes then leads him on a tour of his past, stressing that he must not try to speak to his younger self. However, he breaks the rule when the train brings him to his honeymoon. Haig occasionally slips into platitudes (“It only takes a moment to die, but a whole lifetime to learn how to live”), but he authentically evokes Wilbur’s fears and regrets over the course of a life marked by sacrifice. This will please the author’s fans. Agent: Clare Conville, C&W Agency. (May)