Buying Time

released OUT NOW! 368 pages | Paperback/ebook Author eM Brown Publisher solaris

There are some big ideas in Buying Time: in the near future, England embraces fascism, while an independent Scotland becomes a safe haven for refugees fleeing anti-LGBT legislation in both England and the US. Yet at heart EM Brown’s story boils down to something much more personal.

The narrative is told from two viewpoints. The primary protagonist is Ed Richie, a bestselling author who, for reasons he cannot comprehend, finds his consciousness erratically jumping back in time, transposing his sixtysomething mind into his younger selves. Then there’s Ella Shaw, a journalist in 2030 researching Richie’s disappearance five years ago.

Brown can be guilty of doing a Stephen King, making his leading man a writer who happens to be smart, charming and attractive, though Richie frequently comes across as smug and vain. Yet the mystery behind his dilemma, as he travels into his own past, is a fascinating one that quickly and powerfully drags the reader in and holds them tight.

Ella Shaw’s story is the slighter of the pair, and the main appeal there is Brown’s portrait of a dystopian England under a far-right government where menace constantly hangs in the air. The pace only intensifies as the plot thickens, urging the reader onwards to discover the truth behind Richie’s chronological freefall. David West