THE CLOCKS IN THIS HOUSE ALL TELL DIFFERENT TIMES

released 15 april 369 pages | paperback/ebook

Author Xan Brooks Publisher salt publishing

An orphan walks into the deep, dark woods and meets “the funny men”: Toto, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. Elsewhere, a balloon saves a widow’s life, while a self-proclaimed spiritualist conjures flames whenever he rubs his fingers together. Don’t be fooled, though. This is no light-hearted fantasy adventure. Xan Brooks’s debut novel is deadly serious stuff: set in post-Great War London, it’s a catalogue of the scars that the fighting inflicted on the country. And while there’s a hint of magic in the air, it’s not the kind that’s going to save anyone from the harshness of reality.

Brooks’s prose is frequently beautiful, his descriptions of small towns and country piles so convincing he might be writing a nightmarish travel guide. And his characters – from kind-hearted Lucy to slimy Gant and the tragic Lion – are all skilfully rendered, achingly real. Yet his subject matter is so dark that all the gallows humour in the world can’t make this anything other than a deeply harrowing read. Think Catch-22 crossed with Rebecca, but a hundred times more disturbing. Approach with caution: once read, you won’t be able to forget this story in a hurry. Sarah Dobbs