Imagine if you could travel back in time to when you were sixteen.
Imagine if you could spend one weekend reliving your past - would you change anything?
Everything wrong with Craig Pelling's life can be traced back to 1986 and the moment he popped in to a newsagent for a can of Coke. Now in his mid-forties, he lives in a loveless marriage and earns a living in a dead-end job managing an electrical store. He could have been so much more, achieved so much more.
But as bitter as Craig feels about his mundane existence, fate hasn't finished with him yet. A series of unfortunate events pushes the hapless Craig to breaking point as his life crumbles around him. All looks lost until he's thrown a lifeline - the miraculous lifeline of a brief trip back to 1986, to relive one weekend as his sixteen year-old self. Will he be able to fix his mundane life? Is it as simple as just reverting one decision he made over thirty years ago?
Craig is about to find out.
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[They say you should never Google your symptoms if you're unwell]***
(CrestaPress Publishing, 14 October 2016, 360 pages, ebook, borrowed from @AmazonKindle #KindleLendingLibrary)
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I found this a treat to read. I loved the premise, very Back to the Futurish so I expected to like this book. Plus I'm a sucker for books that feature time travel or a non-linear narrative / time shift. I was impressed with The '86 Fix before I'd even read the first line. The book has a first person narrator. I love this POV when an author does it right and it was spot on here. There are also echoes of Peggy Sue Got Married here as well. The book start off in the present with Craig, realising his life hasn't turned out the way he wanted when his former school bully becomes his new boss. The second half of the novel revolves around Craig, transported back in time to a key moment when he was 16. Can he get the lift he wants? What will it cost him? I thought this was fund and entertaining. There is a sequel which I will read as well.
