I enjoyed the concept of this psychological thriller with a sci-fi twist. Set around now, commercial time travel is a reality for the very rich, who can go on a holiday to the past. In addition to the usual problems posed by time travel, it’s owned by a corporation headed by an eccentric, Musk-type figure. There’s a lot packed into the novel – crime, property, relationships, family, history, science. The core of the novel is around what happened at a commune, in which acts of cruelty cost lives on one particular day when the house burned down. The main protagonist is Phoebe, a documentary maker who made a film about this, because she lived there as a teen. She is making a documentary about the time travel company, when she is drawn into events as things start to go wrong. There is a secondary protagonist, Sasha, who may be about to get revenge on Phoebe by going into the past so she can change the future.

The story gets rather complicated and the links or coincidences between everything seemed contrived. There could have been a lot more dialogue and I would have preferred flashbacks rather than a lot of explanation. It’s a good story though and it would make a compelling TV drama or film, if the plot was simplified. I wasn’t sure about the ethics of Phoebe wearing Meta smart glasses to record everything for her documentary. I assumed though that this is an alternative universe where things are not too different, just a little.

Ellery Lloyd are a husband and wife team, Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.

Published by Macmillan, 2026.