Synopsis:
“We wake up to tomorrow, never yesterday.”
At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.
But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t escape her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?
Review:
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Under Story is a tale about lives and lifetimes as much as it is about the science and theories governing our universe. It’s a story of love and heartbreak, friendship, and family ties, with a fascinating premise.
It follows Laurel Salter, who at the beginning of the book is going through a very rough period in her life. She’s just gone through a divorce and her career as a mycologist doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. On a whim, she applies for a dishwasher job at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, hoping to escape everything else for a while. When she arrives, she sees the arc for the first time. It’s drawing scientists from around the globe, but physicists in particular. A few months after she arrives, so does her ex-husband, Eli Rosen, who is working with a team of physicists.
Eli is as much a part of this book as Laurel, though the story revolves around her. He developed a concept, the “Duoverse,” to explain why certain quantum particles don’t seem to exist (though in theory, they should.) The Duoverse consists of our universe, plus a second nearly-identical one, where those particles exist, but where time moves backward from how we perceive it here. It’s an interesting idea, and one the author expanded on throughout the book, sometimes in unexpected ways.
Under Story is written in a literary style and tends to jump between present and past/memories frequently. By the end, I had a complete picture of both characters’ lives, from their teen years forward and back again. Laurel and Eli’s story is a messy, complicated web of love, loss, friendships, successes, and failures—a full picture of the typical human experience. And it asks, “How far would you go to change the past and save someone you love?”
I found it to be an overall enjoyable read, though there were a few parts where I couldn’t fully grasp what drove Laurel’s decisions. Those parts were minor, though, and I don’t feel they really detracted much from the story. And despite the book’s length (it’s 497 pages in paperback), I felt the ending was a little rushed. I could have used just a bit more.
I’d recommend Under Story to those who enjoy literary genre fiction and speculative fiction, with a focus on humanity.
Under Story is available for preorder and will release on September 1, 2026.
Leave a Reply