‘STYLISH, ALLURING, UTTERLY GRIPPING’ Lisa O’Kelly, Observer
‘WONDERFULLY INVENTIVE (COMPARISONS WITH KATE ATKINSON ARE INEVITABLE… I COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN’The Times
‘LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER READ BEFORE’ Red


Lauren Pailing is born in the sixties, and a child of the seventies. She is thirteen years old the first time she dies.



Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the eighties, becomes a Londoner in the nineties. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her – while Lauren enters a brand new life, too.

But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him.

And so it is that every ending is also a beginning. And so it is that, with each new beginning, Peter Stanning inches closer to finally being found…

Perfect for fans of Kate Atkinson and Maggie O’Farrell, The First Time Lauren Pailing Died is a book about loss, grief – and how, despite it not always feeling that way, every ending marks the start of something new.