Published By: The Borough Press
Pages: 384
Released On: 18/03/2027
It is 1940, and Beatrice Bone does not want to turn twenty-eight. She longs for adventure like the heroines of her favourite novels, but instead finds herself locked away in her parents’ house by a mother determined to keep her safe from a world at war.
Then her sister Clemmie gives her a birthday gift: a pocket watch, inscribed with two words. Memento Mori. Remember you must die.
Days later, Clemmie is dead.
In her grief, Beatrice would do anything to wrench time backwards. And then, impossibly, she finds that she can.
But what future will unfold when the past is rewritten?
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and The Borough Press for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This was my first 2027 read. I normally read my ARCs in release order, so I still had 2026 books to read but as soon as I received this I had to move it to the top of my list.
Weyward is one of my absolute favourite books, and The Sirens, whilst not at the same level in my opinion, was still an incredible book. So I have been super excited about this one. Emilia is an original talent and I can’t see her ever writing a book that isn’t utterly fantastic to read. So yeah, I had high hopes.
Her way of writing women, particularly sisters, is one of the best. The only person I can compare her to is Julie Owen Moylan, another of my favourite female writers.
It’s not what I was expecting. In terms of storytelling ability it is, and character creation and depth of feeling etc. But this one felt more accessible plot wise, even though there is this sense of magic in it. But the previous two were very much fantasy, whereas this one felt very real but with a spark of magic. It’s also set in a familiar historical period. Her previous books include scenes from a time or land that feels ancient to us, whereas a book set during WWII feels relatively recent and familiar.
And I think this means it didn’t have the same feel to it. I just want to add here that’s not a complaint, just an observation. If you’d given it to me and not told me who the author was, I probably wouldn’t have plumped for her, but it’s an interesting new angle and it’s just cemented how much of an interesting writer she is.
It is told through Beatrice’s POV, and her Mum Alice’s POV – these are mostly when she was a young child and then young woman, and really helped flesh out the character in the more modern scenes. And I really liked it when the two POVs became intertwined.
I liked her depictions of wartime Britain. She’s not glamorised it or sensationalised it, nor has she focussed on the macabre and morbid. She’s been honest about it and you really get that sense. But this isn’t a war novel. This is a novel about family and sisterhood and what you’d do for those you love that just so happens to be set at wartime.
I read it in two sittings because whilst it might light on action (not a criticism) it’s still so addictive. And I felt really sad once I’d finished it because it meant I was no longer in this world she’d created.
I generally don’t reread books because I have so many new ones to read. But this might be an exception. There are so many little things threaded through it that I imagine I missed on first read, so it would be interesting to see how much more I could get out of it a second time.
