What's in a name? Quite a lot, actually, in this moving debut

What if? And what's in a name? Those are the questions at the heart of Florence Knapp's clever, beautiful and deeply moving debut novel The Names, about one family and three possible fates.

- Fiona Roberts-Moore

Cora has just had her second child, a boy. As she walks to the registrar's office with her little girl, Maia, in the aftermath of the Great Storm in 1987, she turns her choices over in her mind: should she do as she's been told and name him Gordon, after her abusive, domineering husband? Break with family tradition and risk Gordon's fury with Bear, Maia's choice "soft and cuddly, but also brave and strong"? Or seek a compromise with Julian, which means "sky father", a name her husband might just about tolerate as a paternal tribute? As the registrar waits with her pen and the storm lingers in the air, a shimmer of fate - the Sliding Doors moment hangs over the story: what if? Knapp's deceptively simple idea is to split her tale after that moment, charting the consequences of all three decisions over the next three decades through the different versions of Cora, her son - Bear, Julian and Gordon - and the ch