The story centers around a couple who have been banished to an island for having a child against the rules of their country. Aina’s creator, Tom Watson, now billed by Bloomsbury as a literary star of 2022, is a graduate of University of East Anglia (UEA) in creative writing, where he won the Curtis Brown Prize. There are passages that made me take such a deep breath, he describes the simple things, such as a candle being snuffed out with such care and precision - I could almost smell the molten wax as the flame fluttered and died. Is it a protest of sorts, in which fictionalising “transports to other places and other lives” (Amanda Saint). The relationship between Aina and Whitney is murky and imbalanced, with Aina not fully trusting Whitney.

Once again, it is as if the author has come to rely on obfuscation to gain an effect; things are the way they are, not for any real reason but “just because”. As for Anais Nin, she ‘could not live in any of the worlds offered to me – the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics.

His imagining of the sparse and chilly beauty of the island, together with the exiles’ thwarted attempts to make creative sense of both their fate and their surroundings, should make for an engrossing and memorable reading experience. In Whitney and Aina, Watson has created a couple whose secrets threaten both their present and their future and whose emotional limits are test.

For a novel depicting twelve years’ isolation for two people on an island, it can read like a veritable a-z of underlying themes such as: adversity, attraction, challenge, climate change, communication, companionship, construction, control, death, destruction, determination, distraction, distance, equality, existence, family, fear, health, human hunger, intimacy, lies, love, oppression, pleasure, pressure, rebellion, relationships, revenge, sacrifice, safety, scams, secrets, solitude, synchronicity, time, etc. The narrative ticktocks between the daily routine and the characters' inner thoughts, building tension as if towards a countdown however just like a metronome it simply becomes repetitive. As she comes to grips with the decisions that haunt her past, she realises her biggest choice is yet to come.The only thing that appears is a lone sheep - which leads to Aina becoming suspicious that they are not in fact on an island as she believes sheep cannot swim. Maybe this says something about Watson’s own life, why he was compelled to tell this particular story. Katherine Mansfield also combines the senses and elements in her ‘Voices Of The Air’ poem using air, sound, sea, wind and music, ‘sighs’, ‘double notes’ and double basses, that appear in ‘rare’ moments. By taking the decision to have a child without obtaining official permission, Whitney and Aina are breaking the law.

Most of the questions never got answered but I became so engrossed in their present that this didn’t matter. So it became more a case of accepting its scenario where the characters play out their parts for dramatic effect. Islands are always good places to set thrillers on, dystopian or otherwise but I never really felt I understood the geography and must admit I was pleased to get to the end of the book.The eventual focus on parenthood meant this reminded me a lot of The Road, and there were also shades of The Water Cure and Doggerland (though, thankfully, the dual protagonists ensure a less overly male atmosphere). I would throw a few questions at her from Proust’s questionnaire; probably “what is your greatest regret”, “what is your motto” and “who are your heroes in real life”. Whilst I'm not sure Metronome brings anything new to the genre, I did enjoy the atmospheric descriptions and Watson did a good job of making the couple's predicament believable.

I also felt like I still needed to know more, the book finishes with an ambiguous ending that I wasn’t keen on and I did feel that the last part of the story was rather rushed. It’s all very The Handmaid’s tale although we never find out what the rules are exactly and why they are in place. Dystopian, suspenseful and atmospheric, the premise of this novel is that a married couple are coming to the end of their 12 year incarceration on a remote (fictional) island. I kept reading until the end, which I found disappointing as it was very ambiguous and open to interpretation.I love the idea that each book is numbered and limited, they're extra special because they're personalised with those sought-after signatures, and they are not on tip-in pages. The character list is sparse but the two protagonists are so well realised and at times both oddly quite relatable, despite their extraordinary circumstances. Art features heavily in the novel, sparked by the arrival of three Anthony Gormley sculptures at the UAE, which planted the seed in Watson’s mind, demonstrating a very organic and holistic process. In Metronome, determination exposes any flaws or attributes that Whitney and Aina (which means always) might have.