Metronome: The 'unputdownable' BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club Pick

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However, they are coming to the end of their time there, ready for the Warden to come and take them back to society. This book was just picked up by chance, because I had seen a review of it in the local press, but it has certainly made me think more deeply than the words on the page. Beautifully in fact, as we are literally exposed to the elements, so cleverly crafted in this debut novel.

Whitney stubbornly insists that they wait for the warden to rescue them, while Aina has given up thinking anyone will ever come.

The connection to the sculptures is not obvious at first but once the connection is made, coupled with Whitney’s own artworks, it is explosive. But although the underlying mystery and sense of threat is enough to keep us engaged and turning pages, the narrative eventually becomes overreliant on the deliberate withholding of information. This is a mesmerising and engrossing tale - well-drawn characters and location with an intriguing and unique storyline makes this an excellent debut novel - 9/10. According to Wille, fire speeds things up for example, water slows things down; air gives focus and earth opens out. For twelve years Aina and Whitney have been in exile on an island for a crime they committed together, tethered to a croft by pills they must take for survival every eight hours.

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. Except we do not know if she is alone, what lunch consisted of, what kind of dishes they are and how many, where the sink is, where she is, or what happened before. Metronome is everything that I want from a book, this is most certainly going to be amongst my top books of this year.

This really didn’t: the level of explanation is well maintained, the resolution shocked and gripped me (while also being somehow predictable from the first few pages). It was filmed on Yell, off the Isle of Skye, with its dramatic landscape and far-reaching vistas, similarly to ‘The Limits’ where Metronome is set.

Me-tro-nome, the use of it in musical terms (Aina is a pianist with a mathematical brain, cunning and in control of her own life) and in timekeeping. I wonder if they’ve met, as there’s evidence of this in Watson’s multi-layered work; ‘fat, cold drops’ for rain, and “waves come as murmurs.

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. It was interesting to find out that their crime was to go against the governments rules over having a baby. They’ve kept busy – Aina with her garden, her jigsaw, her music; Whitney with his sculptures and maps – but something is not right. Despite its dystopian nature, it felt unsettlingly plausible, and this gave it a tense and chilling atmosphere. They say if you had a powerful enough microphone you could hear conversations that took place years ago.