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Metronome

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.

Author
Author
Imprint
Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN
Publishing date
RRP (paperback)
Pages
978-1526639547
31/03/ 2022
£8.27
320
Dark, dystopian, post apocalyptic, atmospheric novel with slow plot reveals. Aina and Whitney were imprisoned in isolation on a remote island 12 years ago for their crime. Their daily life is unremittingly bleak and harsh being controlled by a biometric pill clock which dispenses pills every 8 hours which they must take to survive the toxic environmental conditions.
Gripping, page turner. Annette 8/10


I found this book quite compelling. Claustrophobic and fraught with tension the story follows exiles Aina and Whitney in their isolation on an island in a dystopian future. Betrayal threatens their future as they wait to return to civilisation and Aina is forced to make a choice.
A tense page-turner Linda 8/10


A dark dystopian novel of exile, punishment, isolation, and yearning amid the deteriorating relationship of the main characters. The lack of background and relentless bleak narrative was not for me, also I found the conclusion, abrupt and confusing Caroline 5/10
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