Touchstone: All the Time in the World

by Andy Conway

Continuing the adventures of Rachel and Danny, a pair of mismatched History students who stumble upon an old gravestone that catapults them back in time.

Rachel, lost and alone in 2012, travels back to 1966 to repair her lost timeline with the help of Charlie, now 50 years old but still in love with her. The Swinging Sixties are in full flow, Birmingham is being rebuilt and England are hosting the football World Cup.

The temptation to stay there and live with Charlie is overwhelming, but Danny is there too, and the World Cup betting sting he’s carrying out on the city’s bookies brings them all to the attention of a local gangster, a corrupt politician, a cop with a grudge and a cabal of mysterious time travellers who are determined to prevent the past being changed.

In the end it’s hard to care about correcting the past when you’re in danger of becoming the foundations for a new high rise.

Touchstone explores a city’s dark past: a gritty world of real danger where every action has an unforeseen consequence that can ripple through generations.

This 53,000-word novel is the third part of the Touchstone story - a self-contained adventure set during the Swinging Sixties.

LENGTH: 53,000 words / 270 pages

WARNING. Touchstone is suitable for ages 14+

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 13, 2013

About the author

Andy Conway is the novelist, screenwriter and time traveller behind the Touchstone series. He runs a publishing empire from a loft in Birmingham. A keen advocate for authors' rights, he is the founder of the West Midlands Screenwriters Forum, New Street Authors and Punk Publishers.

Read more and join his Touchstone mailing list at www.andyconway.net

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first two books of the Touchstone series and instantly bought the remaining in the first season. (They’re split into two “seasons”, 6 books per season, totalling 12 books. Plus a 4 book spin off “originals” season, plus probably more that I haven’t found yet!)

This doesn’t start as you’d expect really, I kind of expected it to follow straight on from the end of book 2, but it still flowed nicely. I think it would help more reading these books back to back, as even though I only had 2 days gap between finishing book 2 and starting book 3 (awaiting delivery), I had to refresh my mind who a couple of the characters were. Plus, reading ahead in the next books blurbs, it does mention recurring characters coming back.

You see more of a divide between Rachel and Danny in this book. I thought they were really good together in the first book, but you can see the chasm developing between them now and I have a feeling Danny is going to go rogue at some point.

The storyline is mostly set in the swinging 60s and each book seems to be set mostly in a different period - so 1912, 1940 and now 1966 (and also 2012 the “present” day). The timeline is getting a little murky - Rachel’s timeline has changed since her trip to the past (think Biff and the Sports Almanac) and I think this is going to be a continuing theme while she tries to fix the timeline. (Maybe she’ll start disappearing?) I do love the burgeoning shy love between Rachel and Charlie and as I mentioned in my previous review, there’s a bit of The Time Traveller’s Wife about it.

This book does deal with a lot of the excitement surrounding England winning the World Cup in 1966 and Danny placing bets (when he obviously knows the outcome.) This doesn’t change, they still win the World Cup but Danny ends up getting smacked around and spending the night behind bars, due to his betting ways. So if you’re not interested in football and wouldn’t know how to place a bet if your life depended on it, then you do start skimming a little.

The thing I have enjoyed about these books (so far) is the shortness of the chapters and the alternating between characters. It does keep the pages turning at a rate of knots and I do think that Andy has developed the characters really well. I also like the cover art of this book, and there’s a nice little story that gets mentioned in the acknowledgments.

What has surprised me is that there hasn’t been more reviews for this book, as to me, it should have been very popular. As Andy does mention at the end though, “you won’t be seeing adverts for Touchstone books on billboards or station platforms” so a simple review helps the author. I just wish I could find out if the second “season” of Touchstone is based around the same characters, or if we veer away from them at the end of book 6 … I guess I’ll need to keep reading won’t I?

[[ J o ]]

Read the first book of the Touchstone series, The Sins of the Fathers. 1 Star, there fore will not be continuing with the series.