An Ocean of Minutes

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What to expect

'An Ocean of Minutes is that rare thing - a speculative novel that is as heartfelt as it is philosophical. An original and compelling novel unlike anything you'll read this year'
Esi Edugyan, author of Washington Black

A heartbreaking and timely novel about courage, yearning, the cost of holding onto the past - and the price of letting it go.

Polly and Frank are young and in love, a lifetime together before them. But one evening in 1980, as the Texas sun sets over their shoulders, the world is suddenly pulled apart by a deadly virus. Within months, Frank is dying. Polly can save him, but only if she agrees to a radical plan: to time travel to 1993 for a corporation who can fund his life-saving treatment. She can only go forward, she cannot go back. And she must leave everything she loves behind, including Frank.

All they have is the promise of a future together: they will find each other again in twelve years' time, in Galveston, Texas, where the sea begins.

But when something goes wrong and Polly arrives late, Frank is nowhere to be found. Completely alone, Polly must navigate a terrifying new world to find him, and to discover if their love has endured.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GILLER PRIZE 2018

'The clear-eyed, evocative writing here is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood, and anyone familiar with The Handmaid's Tale will find resonance in these pages... a devastating debut'
Toronto Star

'An Ocean Of Minutes absolutely swept me away'
Red Magazine

'A profound meditation on the inhumanity of class and the limits of love... This is a story about the malleability of time, but at its core lives something timeless'
Omar El Akkad, author of American War

Critics Review

Timely... like the best dystopian worlds, Thea Lim's debut resonates with the present... a fresh perspective on the complex subjects of migration and displacement that plague our world today
Irish Times
Thea Lim's An Ocean of Minutes is that rare thing - a speculative novel that is as heartfelt as it is philosophical. In lucid prose, Lim lays bare the complexities of migration and displacement, while offering a clear-eyed meditation on the elusive nature of human devotion. An original and compelling novel unlike anything you'll read this year
Esi Edugyan, author of Washington Black
An Ocean Of Minutes absolutely swept me away
Red
With echoes of The Time Traveller's Wife, An Ocean of Minutes is a love story with a difference
Good Housekeeping
The clear-eyed, evocative writing here is reminiscent of Margaret Atwood, and anyone familiar with The Handmaid's Tale will find resonance in these pages... a devastating debut
Toronto Star
Amidst the breathtaking world Thea Lim has created in An Ocean of Minutes is a profound meditation on the inhumanity of class and the limits of love. It takes immense talent to render cruelty both accurately and with honest beauty - Lim has pulled it off. This is a story about the malleability of time, but at its core lives something timeless
Omar El Akkad, author of American War
Heartbreaking... A beautiful debut exploring how time, love, and sacrifice are never what they seem to be
Kirkus
A strikingly imaginative time-travel story unlike anything I've ever read, rich with pinpoint emotional insight and fierce, vivid observations about a future that's already our past
Elan Mastai, author of All Our Wrong Todays
Thea Lim's imaginative and timely writing feels wholly original... a truly heart-breaking narrative... a beautifully poignant ending
Western Mail
A buoyant, compelling tale ranging from the everyday beauty of falling in love to a frightening vision of a dystopian present day... boundless and dynamic
Jennie Melamed, author of Gather the Daughters
An Ocean of Minutes offers that rare combination of a provocative speculative setting, masterfully elegant writing, and a story that moves and haunts long after the last page. Thea Lim is an enormously talented writer
David Chariandy, author of Brother
Lim's enthralling novel succeeds on every level: as a love story, and imaginative thriller and a dystopian narrative
Publishers Weekly
An Ocean of Minutes is a time machine into the future of this moment. Gripping and graceful, it's dystopian love story as told by a visionary. Thea Lim's novel reads like the birth of a legend
Mat Johnson, award-winning author of Pym and Loving Day
Moving and compelling
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