A really exciting time travel murder mystery - an urban fantasy that feels wholly believable and real. You feel every minute of the story's seven dread filled days as the clock counts down to the execution of an innocent girl in 1955, and the emotions of Millie from the present day and her friend and ally Joe who is Annie's brother who are trying desperately to find the evidence that will save her. I read this all in one go, well past midnight, and my heart was racing until the very end. I couldn't put it down and would recommend it to anyone.

Jamie Costello, the YA pseudonym for acclaimed crime writer Laura Wilson, offers a captivating departure from her usual genre with "The Midnight Clock." This clever dystopian speculative thriller presents a world thrown into chaos after an unexplained phenomenon renders everyone's vision monochromatic, plunging society into disarray.

However, in this intriguing change of direction, dystopia takes a backseat to a mysterious form of time travel. The story follows a teenage girl who finds herself transported back to the year 1955, yet retains the ability to return to the present day. As she navigates this unfamiliar era, she becomes entangled in a complex murder mystery and potential miscarriage of justice.

3.5/5.

I do love a book with alternative time lines, it does make a book intresting. Justice for Annie was the main storyline, I feel we could of visited her a few more times. I also could not understand why it was only under 18 that could see millie. Maybe more susceptible to magic. It did keep me reading as I wanted to know if Annie could be saved, but so many unanswered questions.

This is a Young Adult Book but I chose it as it looked interesting - and I was right. A clock that somehow allows a person to slip into a different period of time, in this case, 1955. Same date, same place - but in 1955 a terrible injustice is to take place in a few days, and it is going to take a twist of the clock to try to put it right.

Millie is staying at her fathers smart new flat in a converted women's prison while her mother is away in Greece. Waking in the night, she ventures out of her room to find she is in the prison and its 1955 and a teenage girl, Annie, in a cell is soon to be executed for the murder of her sisters. Millie find that adults in 1955 cannot see her but children can, and she meets up with Annie's brother Joe, who is convinced she is innocent. Shuttling between 1955 and the present Millie investigates the family and gets more and more convinced that Joe is right. Can they collect the evidence in time to save Annie - and will the laws of time travel allow them to? Clever plot and a rattlingly good story.

This was a fun intro to time travel for YA with a coming of age slant.

Millie was a likeable character with just enough sass for her to be convincingly a teenager but also not irritating. I'm in my 30s but still enjoy YA fiction, some of the best books series are YA!

I found the writing style to be very accessible but perhaps a little overly simplistic at times, Costello plays it safe but some of the leading YA authors (e.g. Pullman and Rowling) use more complex language so perhaps Costello could be bolder in this respect.

I enjoyed the flashbacks, but some elements weren't explained - why could children see Millie but adults couldn't?

The theme of changing history via time travel was explored and I liked the outcome of this. I won't say more as it will spoil the story, but changing the timeline has consequences.

Also, not sure Kierans storyline made much sense. Why did he think he was dead? I didn't feel like this was explained.

I wasn't overly convinced of Joe and Millie's chemistry. It felt like this was shoehorned in a little to have some element of romance.

It was an entertaining read but I wasn't left wowed by it. Glad to have had the privilege of being able to read an advanced copy, thank you so much! I will definitely check out future books by Costello.

Really really really enticing book. The story gets even more interesting at the half-way point. Like...whaaaaaat?
Read it. Now.
I was afraid that the foreshadowed backstories would be long and boring, but they're short and sweet. Awesome book.

An intriguing and gripping story, I loved the characters and can't wait to read more by this author.

Jamie Costello – The Midnight Clock

Jamie Costello is the YA penname for adult crime writer Laura Wilson whose fascinating teen debut Monochrome (2022) impressed me greatly a couple of years ago. This clever dystopian speculative thriller is set after an undiagnosed phenomenon causes everybody to see in black and white or monochrome, which brings the world to its knees. The Midnight Clock is a fascinating change of direction in which dystopia is abandoned in favour of a strange type of time travel which catapults a teenage girl back to 1955, but she retains the ability to come back to the present day and gets sucked into a complex murder mystery and potential miscarriage of justice which she tries to rectify.

There are many novels on the market featuring ‘Butterfly Effect’ stories where changing something in the past impacts the future, but there are unlikely to be many as strange as The Midnight Clock. Millie is temporarily living with her father and his new (much younger) partner whilst her mother is in Greece and spends her time antagonising them. Her father’s flat is in a converted part of an old prison and in the complex the clock from the prison has been retained and Millie is drawn to it. Initially thinking she has been dreaming or sleepwalking, she finds herself transported back to the prison in 1955, a week before the execution of Annie Driscoll and when she returns to the modern period begins to research into this tragic woman’s life. What follows is an immersive back and forward drama where Millie uses the present to investigate the past in what becomes an incredibly complex mystery. I am not 100% certain I understood all the aspects of the time ripples, but I enjoyed the romantic storyline, the jokes over how the meaning of words change (‘gay’ and many others), the reveals about the clock and the manner in which the past connected with the present. This was a clever character driven drama which kept things low key and avoids the loud dramatics of films like Back to the Future and was all the better for it. AGE RANGE 12+