The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
Imagine you are in peril and your life flashes before your eyes but…it isn’t your present existence, it’s one you left behind years ago. Suddenly your whole reason to be alive is called into question. That is the dilemma faced by Dawn, a former Egyptologist, now working as a Death Doula in Boston. The story time-travels between Dawn’s family life in Boston with her daughter and physics professor husband and her involvement with her terminally ill clients, contrasting with her time in her former existence uncovering Egyptian treasures and her love affair with Wyatt. She makes the spontaneous decision to revisit the country and the man who played such an important part in her former life. Her special interest in “The Book of Two Ways” (a feature of some ancient tombs thought to show a map of the Netherworld) is woven into the story, into both lives, and her work with the dying. 
If you’ve read any of this author’s books you might be familiar with her style of examining two sides of a problem. Whilst this is still a book about a dilemma, love and regret, it is not a typical Jodi Picoult book and has been criticised for this. The detail included on the Egyptology theme may put some readers off. It nearly did me. How glad I am that I stuck with it. I let some of the detail wash over me just absorbing enough to feel the impact of this fascinating subject on life today. Dawn’s work to give her clients a good death was inspiring. You are propelled through the book, through the lives, in a time shifting fashion which I found worked very well. This is not the dreary story you might expect with such a focus on death. Dawn has to tread very carefully with her ex-lover, the charismatic Egyptologist, her daughter, and her husband in order to find her way, not to the afterlife, but to the life she should continue with.
Not an easy book but definitely worth the effort if you can cope with the historical themes.
Catherine Holmes