When Alex and his Father are forced to flee their home to escape a brutal Government, they begin a life-threatening journey across Europe. But when they are separated before they can reach Britain, Alex finds himself alone, with only his extraordinary gift to keep him alive. However luckily this gift allows him to avoid dangerous situations.
A very thought provoking book that covers the perils faced by refugees and human trafficking.
A insight in to human exploitation whilst trying to travel to the safety of another country.
A book that would throw up plenty of opportunities for discussions with children.
My thanks go to the author, publisher and Netgalley in providing this arc in return for a honest review.

This was a really fast paced book and it only took me a couple of reading sessions to finish it. Had it been slower to finish, I may have considered not finishing it at all, as the combination of over the top action with the realistic, emotional story clashed badly.

A refugee escaping what was clearly Russia, but for some reason the book attempted to keep this ambiguous by never saying the word Russia, Alex and his Dad flee to the UK, where they find themselves separated. Alex has a series of incredibly lucky events that lead to him not being immediately deported, solving some sort of major crime while he's there.

The ending didn't make a lot of sense to me. I was given the impression that Alex's abilities improved as he learned to improve them, and the while the ending was clever, it left me wondering how he suddenly developed his ability to see time to that extent.

Alexander has a super-power kind of ability, where he can freeze time and see it play out in his mind instead – gaining the advantage of looking into the near future without anyone else being cognizant of it. That way he can clearly earn a living in moments at the roulette table, and on the stock exchange, but this is him as a fourteen year old, and such things are second to where he is now. For he’s being asked to work for some illegal people smugglers turned illegal traders, and in such a situation his ability is pretty much only a party trick, for the truth is he can only see the next fifteen or so seconds of his life before his predictions of the laws of the universe run out of time.

That said, in this young teen thriller, Alexander has also crossed into Europe, travelled across it, and left it for the UK. And had his life saved at least once due to his skills. This creates an instant problem for the readability of the book – that one half of it is showing the risk it might cause him in the here and now, while every alternating chapter speeds us back to his flight to Britain, where his father is hoping to reunite with some whistle-blowing dissident information regarding their (unnamed) home country. In other words, half the chapters take the peril out of the other half, by saying he survived, and said other half show the talent of the lad to be more than enough for almost any danger.

However, the book does its damnedest to get over that handicap – and just about achieves this. It has to put Alexander and a new friend (of sorts) into a lot of more mature peril than is realistic, to make us wonder if the skill is going to be enough, but principally what it manages is enough of a page-turning quality to make us not sit and think of all the issues the twin timeline format raises. Ultimately I think there is a mahoosive timey-wimey nit-pick (or plain plot hole, if you like) come the finish, but really the book is so energetic it can almost leap that hurdle too. It’s highly cinematic too, and I could easily see the visual version of the narrative’s italic sections, where we are in the potential future for the brief spells allowed. My personal taste would not have it focused around English Channel trafficking, with all the scope for woke bleating that allows, but really such contemporary issues are second to the fact that any young audience, say, twelve year olds, at any time, would have seen more than enough drama and grit and surprise on these pages to rate it really highly.

An interesting book covering the perils faced by refugees and the power of human trafficking in this scenario. The main protagonist has a power to see ahead in time, in a few second stints. This enables him to sometimes avoid dangerous situations. Hie is separated from his father and there are some scary scenes of channel crossing in a precarious dinghy which were frankly quite traumatic to read.
Determined to expose war crimes into their homeland they plan to travel illegally to England.

A great insight into the perils of people being exploited whilst trying to travel to safety to another country, and all the dangers this entails.

Thank you for @nosycrow and @netgalley for allowing me to review this book.

Stars 4⭐️

Running out of time was a edge of your seat scientific thriller which has the concept of people being able to look into time to see the possible outcomes in the backdrop of being a refugee. This book explores the relationships with families and how it can have an impact as well as your life before and after. I found this book really emotional and making me want to read on. Children will love how this delves in both very hard hitting things but it gives the thriller vibes.

The first chapter particularly got me at the end when it spoke about how time is precious and how the main character never took enough. I felt this as an adult we all have times as we grow how we wish we had more time for something and I feel this backdropped the book perfectly. I cannot wait to read more about Simon fox as his writing style really intrigued me and now I want to read more.

If you are looking for a sci-fi which gives you the thriller vibes in a middlegrade form this is the book that you need.

Book release date august 4th.

This is a nail-biting read that I know the children in my class will love for its sci-fi premise and the adrenalin surging plot twists. The format works brilliantly to tie the story together and the skill that is used to draw out our empathy for the main characters is superb. Can’t wait to get a copy of this into the class library. Such a timely, compelling and original tale. Awesome.