Joe steps off a train one day in 1898. He has no idea where he has come from or why he was on the train. He doesn’t recognise the dirty city of ‘Londres’, which is ruled by the French. He is diagnosed with amnesia. He discovers he is an English slave with a wife and baby daughter, but he doesn’t remember them. Occasionally he has flashes of a world and a life he knows can’t exist but his memories don’t return.

One day, Joe receives a postcard of the Eilean Mor lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides, posted 91 years earlier, which reads ‘Dearest Joe, Come home, if you remember.’ He journeys to Eilean Mor, where he hopes he can find some answers to his past.

Instead, he steps through a time portal that takes him back to 1807, where the war between the English and the French hangs in the balance. Naval officer Kite and his sister, Agatha, hope that Joe’s knowledge from the future will help them win the war. They also seem to know who Joe is, or was, but they won’t answer his questions.

Chapters move between the past and future and the mystery of who Joe is only deepens. Will Joe’s quest to find out who he is change history, wipe out the people he loves and perhaps even endanger his own existence?

Intricately plotted, masterfully evoked and gorgeously written, this brilliant book blends time travel, alternative history and speculative fiction. I couldn’t put it down.

Reviewed by Melinda Woledge