There are some themes in Science Fiction that seem to come in waves. Suddenly, there are a number of books dealing with similar concepts before the trend dies away. At the moment, a popular trend seems to be time travel. One of the best-known early time travel novels is H.G. Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’. Even then the concept was not new, as there were stories dating back more than a century before Wells was writing. There seems to be a fascination with visiting the past or the future. Visiting the past is more popular, as historical events are known and historians like to make first-hand observations. When visiting the past, there is always the danger of changing it. ‘Time To Burn’ is one of the most recent in the current rash of time travel novels.
Inigo Frank is the genius behind ‘Tempus Tours’. He provides a service for the very rich to go back in time and experience life there. The company sends development billionaire Harry Allen, Harry’s current lady-friend, his son, Luke, and Luke’s new wife, Sacha, for an evening in 1942 London at the height of the Blitz. When it is time to return to the present, Sacha slips away, but not before Luke is injured by falling glass. Sacha, it seems, has another agenda.
Phoebe Hunt is a documentary maker. The documentary she made about the events that led to her parents’ deaths brought her to the attention of Inigo Frank. He decides she is the right person to make a documentary of him and his achievements. As a result, she is present when the Allen party return, minus one, and records the search for Sacha. The missing woman has left clues and they are able to recover her. That is when Phoebe recognises her. She is not the Belarusian heiress she claims to be but one of the other children at the commune Phoebe’s father headed. Phoebe’s actions back then were the cause of serious injuries to Sacha and also resulted in her mother’s death.
Lucian used to work for Frank. He waylays Phoebe and tries to tell her that the Time Tours activities are resulting in ‘glitches’: small alterations to the timeline, with some people partly remembering what used to be before the change happened. Phoebe initially dismisses him as a disgruntled employee until she sees Harry Allen’s girlfriend change. One moment, she is Beatrice, the next she is Eleanor. Then the relationship Phoebe has had with David for five years no longer exists: she remembers all the details, but David doesn’t. For him, the relationship never happened. Phoebe, Lucian and David try to pinpoint the moment of deviation in the timeline and conclude that Inigo Frank is sending back people who haven’t paid, for his own nefarious purposes. Threatening to expose him, Phoebe takes her own expedition into the past, with the express purpose of finding out what really happened when her parents died.
This is a time travel novel where the author has tried to examine the consequences of sending travellers into the past. Lloyd has wrapped the dilemmas around an intriguing crime novel which has multiple strands that radiate out from the first page. One of the better examples of the current rash of time travel novels.
Pauline Morgan
September 2026
(pub: Macmillan, 2026. 305 pages hardback. Price: £16.99. ISBN: 978-0-06-332305-6)
Check out the website: www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ellery-lloyd/time-to-burn/9781035020997
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