Time's Fool by Alys Earl

Publisher - Unbound

Published - Out Now

Price - £10.99 paperback £2.99 Kindle eBook

Autumn in the market City of Barchester, and two bright students begin their final year at University, content with old friendships, paying lip-service to old dreams. Until, that is, an ill-conceived prank introduces them to Julian.

For Sophia and Steven, the friendship they form with this worldly stranger marks a coming of age, a possibility to embrace the needs and longings they have never had the language to express. But Julian has his own secrets, and as the nights grow longer, it becomes clear that not all desires are without cost; that some things should never be brought into the light.

Time’s Fool is a novel about monstrosity, about desire and communication. It’s about the self we present to the world and the needs we whisper to ourselves in the darkness. It is about honesty and the fear of honesty. It is about the things we refuse - refuse to say, refuse to seek, refuse to believe - because sometimes, ignoring those things is all that keeps us sane.

All of us will remember the disturbing moment when you realise that you may be about to have to grow up. Leave school, college or university and learn the joys of shifts, budgets and feeling like your weekend is better rewarded with an early night rather than an allnighter. Hanging out with that close group of friends who you will talk about everything from the meaning to life to books and film will get harder. But if you could find a way to escape this fate would you? Is there a cost to stay as you are that is worse than moving on? In Alys Earl’s dark atmospheric Time’s Fool a group of friends on the cusp of change find themselves drawn into a triangle of lust with a vampire that does not mean a happy ending for anybody.

Sophia, Lucy and Steven have been friends since childhood and now reside in Barchester in their final year of university. Once drawn together thick as thieves the times are changing. Steven and Lucy are in the final year of studying Literature while Sophia has moved into biology and Sophia is now engaged to John who is more interested in hanging out with his own friends and watching sport rather than having ever increasingly hostile debates with Steven. They therefore after a drunken night out all decide the best thing to prove there can be things such as ghosts is visit a local haunted mansion which they soon discover is actually now reinhabited by Julian the latest heir to the family home. Julian and his magnetic strange personality and good looks draw Sophia and Steven into to regular evenings of chats, wine and discussion and while both work out their increasing attraction to Julian Barchester starts to be haunted by a series of vicious murders at night where a lack of blood in the victim becomes a hallmark of the killer. The group of friends will soon find their meeting of Julian leads to disaster, pain and grief.

This is a really interesting modern gothic novel in dialogue with the gothic of the past. While there are moments of horror the impressive part for me is the study of this ‘triangle’ between Steven, Sophia and Julian. Sophia has been throwing herself into her work and now her relationship with John; living together and becoming a couple and yet is this really her – the passion of the relationship has run dry, and Julian excites her. Steven who is despite their argumentative personality yet to really enter any relationship suddenly finds this strange man exciting in ways he has never experienced before. Unusually we also get Julian’s viewpoint and he is feeling trapped behind a desire for both but conscious that over the centuries his many relationships end nastily and often in death. He is hiding his true nature from both but he yearns to finally reveal his secret. Earl captures desire, attraction, and that sense of passion really well and the reader soon gathers that it cannot possibly end well. The wider circle notices the changes in the two and as Julian’s nature is not yet known suspect they are just witnessing both young students fall to pressure and in Sophia’s case the ending of a failing relationship. I really liked how Earl captured this emotional turmoil making you care about the characters.

Julian though is a fascinating character and Earl plays with his duality in the text. When meeting humans we see Julian but when they are not around he becomes The Creature. Earl fashions a character with many links to the gothic novel and the sophisticated bisexual intelligent man who clashes with an inner monster happy to kill and enjoys toying with victims makes him a character you can almost sympathise with but as his emptions taje their toil his darker impulses get out of control. This means we are not too sure what lies in wait for the other characters but we sense it may not end well and also that Julian’s bewitching personality may actually make some feel this is someone they wouldn’t mind the darker side. Steven’s love for the gothic and Sophia’s desire for passion could make both find Julian with a willing partner.

Despite that though when Earl writes horror scenes the are very effective as this much more powerful being plays with their food night after night and start to enjoy imperceptible bites of Sophia starting to have an impact on her mental and physical health. Many horror stories ignore consequences but in the final third of the story we get characters reacting to death and the scenes of people in grief are hard, powerful and feel very true shaking them out of their comfort zones and making us as readers care that much more about the final chapters to come.

I mentioned the book is in dialogue with past gothic novels and this leads to many scenes of characters of characters discussing literature, authors, and writing. It gets gloriously meta (one character even notes we have a vampire story with a character called Lucy in it) and I thinking if you enjoy this period, you’ll find lots of Easer eggs to explore. Those less familiar with the material may find it stranger but I really liked it and the nature of these characters are that they would be exactly the types of people having late night arguments about books while drunk!

I found this a powerful, intriguing read that is perfect for cold winter nights. It may remind you of how it feels to be that age and also offer scares and passion that will entertain you well into the witching hour. Recommended!