Metronome

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Metronome by Tom Watson, read by Christine Hewitt.

Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award
Longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award

‘Imagined with an impressively detailed three-dimensional solidity’ Sunday Times
'I loved it … You could feel the chill of the wind … Fantastic; it’s a great book' Sara Cox, BBC Two 'Between the Covers'
‘Stylish and thoughtful … The eerie claustrophobia of the setting will stay with the reader for a long while.' Literary Review
'Unputdownable … An extraordinary book … as insightful and as premonitory as Orwell’s 1984’ Litro
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Not all that is hidden is lost.

For twelve years Aina and Whitney have been in exile on an island for a crime they committed together, tethered to a croft by pills they must take for survival every eight hours. They’ve kept busy – Aina with her garden, her jigsaw, her music; Whitney with his sculptures and maps – but something is not right.

Shipwrecks have begun washing up, and their supply drops have stopped. And on the day they’re meant to be collected for parole, the Warden does not come. Instead there’s a sheep. But sheep can’t swim…

As days pass, Aina begins to suspect that their prison is part of a peninsula, and that Whitney has been keeping secrets. And if he’s been keeping secrets, maybe she should too. Convinced they’ve been abandoned, she starts investigating ways she might escape. As she comes to grips with the decisions that haunt her past, she realises her biggest choice is yet to come.
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'Taut, unsettling and so completely charged with both tension and emotion' Naomi Ishiguro
'With echoes of Emily St John Mandel and Megan Hunter' Elizabeth Macneal
'Tense, taut and absorbing' Gemma Reeves
'As moving as it is chilling' Emma Stonex

Reader Reviews
'An original and gripping read'
'Addictive and atmospheric'
'A haunting and original dystopian story'
'Compelling and absorbing'
'A refreshing change from the norm'

Critics Review

Taut, unsettling and so completely charged with both tension and emotion, I found myself captivated by Metronome. I loved the clarity of its vision and the clean intensity of its prose, and I know that its vivid characters and the bleak, brutal beauty of the world they inhabit will haunt my dreams for a long time now, in the absolute best of ways
Naomi Ishiguro
With echoes of Emily St John Mandel and Megan Hunter, this haunting literary thriller is about survival, loss and the binds that unite and break us. Chilling, eerie and powerful
Elizabeth Macneal
A pure, tender, terrifying vision that had me gripped to its beat from the first page. Cleverly imagined and beautifully creepy, it’s a story as moving as it is chilling
Emma Stonex
Echoes the likes of Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven … A compellingly crafted debut, rich in tension and atmosphere
Living Magazine
Imagined with an impressively detailed three-dimensional solidity
Sunday Times
I loved it … You could feel the chill of the wind … Fantastic; it’s a great book
Sara Cox
Stylish and thoughtful … The setup is delicious … A talented writer. The eerie claustrophobia of the setting will stay with the reader for a long while. The relationship between his characters is memorably, and often wittily, drawn
Literary Review
A great debut novel that tells a story of survival and mistrust with skill and craft
Storgy
Unputdownable … An extraordinary book … Metronome might well be a brave new world created by Tom Watson, as insightful and as premonitory as Orwell’s 1984
Litro
Tom Watson has conjured a relationship corroded by compromise and capitulation, and worked it into an extraordinary love story — or rather, a story of what love looks like when affection and trust have fallen away
The Times
Dystopian island drama that packs a punch … A bold debut
Observer
Atmospheric … Watson’s use of language is nuanced and sensitive, with landscape writing especially a sensory highlight
Guardian
An element of 1984 and Big Brother is watching you … I found myself squirreling off just so I could get another quick chapter in … It’s such a page-turner
Adrian Scarborough
It really gave an insight to the human psyche, the power of the mind
Emeli Sande
The rhythm of the book is what struck me
Kate Bottley

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