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

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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.

I came out of this book thinking I had mixed feelings about it, but it's starting to dawn on me that it's more an absence of any feeling at all. 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." Stylish and thoughtful ... The setup is delicious ... A talented writer. The eerie claustrophobia of the setting will stay with the reader for a long while. The relationship between his characters is memorably, and often wittily, drawn * Literary Review *Tom Watson is a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia where he was awarded the Curtis Brown Prize. Metronome – his debut novel – has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. First, it’s very readable. The character list is sparse but the two protagonists are so well realised and at times both oddly quite relatable, despite their extraordinary circumstances. The book is called ‘metronome’ and that could apply to the plotting style as well, it’s expertly paced, the momentum in the final third is unrelenting.

Unputdownable ... An extraordinary book ... Metronome might well be a brave new world created by Tom Watson, as insightful and as premonitory as Orwell's 1984 * Litro * Aina and Whitney have been exiled to an island for an unspecified crime which will become clear as the story unfolds. They have been there twelve years, tethered to their little croft by the need to take a pill from a dispensing machine every eight hours without fail or they will die. They have built a reasonable life, but after twelve years they are expecting to be collected by a Warden who has failed to communicate with them for the past three years. When the parole does not happen and instead an impossible sheep appears, Aina starts to suspect Whitney of lying to her about their situation. She finds a way of slowly gaming the pill machine to over time give her an extra and hence the capacity to go further from their croft. But the situation is soon going to become more complicated and her relationship to Whitney will be further tested. The story centers around a couple who have been banished to an island for having a child against the rules of their country. They have been on this island for 12 years and are waiting to start their parole, with the hope of finally being reunited with their son. However, things start to go wrong and their hope of ever getting off the island starts to melt away. I loved it … You could feel the chill of the wind … Fantastic; it's a great book' Sara Cox, BBC Two 'Between the Covers' I want to talk about the ending- WHAT. ACTUALLY.HAPPEND? because I still don't understand it a day later. I actually NEED to know what happened- did Aina get reunited with Maxime or was she hallucinating? Please someone tell me!!

Wrap Up

Echoes the likes of Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven ... A compellingly crafted debut, rich in tension and atmosphere * Living Magazine * How is the pill dispenser made to be so reliable, adaptable and indestructible but maintenance-free? I am honestly not sure what to say about this book- I have been left very confused and unsure about what actually happened in this novel. I love dystopian thrillers and Metronome was a really intriguing book which stayed with me long after I put it down. Aina and Whitney have been exiled onto an island due to breaking their home’s fertility laws. As a condition of their stay, they must take a pill that is dispensed every 8 hours or they die, however their date of parole is coming up and they will soon be free – or will they?

In his debut novel, Tom Watson seems less interested in the wider political and social reality of his world than in the mundane detail of the characters’ lives and the bleakness of the landscape they inhabit, the emotional standoff that exists between them as a result of the traumatic severing of their previous existence. His use of language is nuanced and sensitive, with landscape writing especially a sensory highlight. His imagining of the sparse and chilly beauty of the island, together with the exiles’ thwarted attempts to make creative sense of both their fate and their surroundings, should make for an engrossing and memorable reading experience. She is haunted by the loss of a child, the fear of losing another child, the endlessness and despair of not knowing what happened to her son....

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With echoes of Emily St John Mandel and Megan Hunter, this haunting literary thriller is about survival, loss and the binds that unite and break us. Chilling, eerie and powerful -- Elizabeth Macneal And the exile to an island, in the middle of God knows where, surrounded by only ocean..... Trying to stay afloat trying to survive, whilst everything you thought to be true seems to be a lie. Taking pills, relying on hear-say, or to take a chance and rely on your guttfeeling...? She is ambitious, industrious, working hard to create whatever they need and investigating their surroundings. He is passive and compliant, spending time on his art projects and acquiescing to their fate. Tom Watson’s debut Metronome is a surreal survival story with a bit of a dystopian edge. Set on an island (or is it?) it is for the most part a claustrophobic and disturbing two hander that requires readers to buy into a real sense of wrongness before then upping the stakes.