Metronome: The 'unputdownable' BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club Pick

Product Information

Atmospheric ... Watson's use of language is nuanced and sensitive, with landscape writing especially a sensory highlight * Guardian * SPOILERS AHEAD] I think my issue comes from the blurb of the book. It suggested a story of survival and hardship, a situation which require out-of-the-box thinking and the island setting itself promised a mystery to unravel. I don't think I would have been as interested if the blurb had hinted at the central idea of population control through fertility regulation because this is a story that has been told many times. I wanted to know where this island was - I was thinking a remote Scottish island or maybe in Scandinavia. Did it matter that their location is never revealed? No. The bleak description of their island was so well fleshed out that there was enough sense of place to satisfy me without having a map! A very unique novel this. Sparse and raw , remote and bleak but there is something that pulls you to it and draws you in. 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.

Her teeth chetter and she can hardly draw breath. The morning seems colder somehow, and her hair is pasted to her scalp. It is as though there is less of her." A book about guilt, new beginnings, making mistakes or decisions, because of being forced by circumstances. The betrayal by someone the mc thought she could trust, and her struggle with sensing this from the beginning, and the not knowing if she should trust.

Metronome is Tom Watson’s debut novel and wow, what a debut it is. I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot as I think it’s one it’s best to go into blind.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this book, perhaps because it didn’t serve up everything to me on a plate. This is a novel which is chilling and powerful. The ending is one which will stay with the reader for some time as Aina’s hope for parole and a return to her community simply bleeds away.Tom Watson has crafted a novel which is replete with tension and barely expressed emotions. The emotional and relationship consequences of exile and isolation on two people whose initial actions led to their exile for twelve years are brought to life through the sparse dialogue between Whitney and Aina where so much is left unsaid. Aina’s growing understanding that Whitney has consistently misled her is brilliantly realised as is her subsequent sense of betrayal and disillusion. This author is so talented, the way that the relationship between Aina and Whitney chop and change throughout the novel is done so very well. The claustrophobic feel of two people spending all of their time together, with no other human company is chilling, and the little niggles of doubt and blame between them, that grow with an intensity throughout is impeccably handled. You never really learn anything about the outside society so you have to just imagine a future population controlled civilization also subject to the poisonous effects of climate change. That this society also takes the time and trouble to exile people to isolated locations but still provide resources and communications becomes a bit of a stretch. Also the idea that people would wait 12 years before doing something further about their situation is also unbelievable. It is a first novel though, and it did build suspense and drama effectively towards the end.