The first book to be featured this season on the Sara Cox Radio 2 Book Club is Time to Burn by Ellery Lloyd—a novel which is utterly absorbing, timely and thrillingly ambitious in equal measure.
The book was released on 23 July and Ellery’s interview with Sara is on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 21 July.
Read an exclusive extract.
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Time to Burn
If the past catches up with you, time travel can be murder…
London, the present day: commercial time travel is a reality (although it’s technologically difficult, prohibitively expensive and extremely heavily regulated). Tempus Tours – owned by controversial tech entrepreneur Inigo Frank – is the first operation to offer those who can afford it the chance to experience first-hand moments of compelling historical interest. The public fascination with genius Inigo is at its peak, and he is being shadowed by veteran journalist Victoria Hunt, as she embarks upon his official biography.
For Tempus’ latest trip, Harry Allen, one of London’s best-known property developers, is celebrating his birthday by taking a few guests, including his troubled son Luke and Luke’s fiancé Sasha, back to the Blitz of London in March 1941, to dine in luxury at the Café de Paris before witnessing the terrifying spectacle of the city’s aerial bombardment.
Tempus has painstakingly established a safe route across the city back to the aperture through which the party will return to the present. But things go catastrophically wrong when Luke stumbles in the smoky darkness and is injured, making the return effort a frantic race against time.
Victoria, stationed at Tempus HQ to observe the excitement of the party’s return instead watches as all hell breaks loose – when the team realise that Sasha remains missing in 1941.
As Sasha’s actions in the past begin to twist history in her favour, Victoria becomes increasingly alarmed to find her present reality shifting in ways at first subtle, then devastating…
Will she be able to figure out exactly what is happening and how to stop it before she loses everything – and everyone – she holds dear?
About the author
Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for London based husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.
Collette is a journalist and editor, former content director of ELLE UK and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Paul is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day Is Like Sunday. He is a professor of writing at the University of Greenwich.
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