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Need a Little Time

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Sometimes, the strangest things can happen, right on your doorstep.

When you find out your best friend and business partner is secretly sleeping with your wife, it may be time to move on.... From your job and your marriage.... Which is precisely what happened to Jamie Newgent.

A change of lifestyle is what’s needed, and a bachelor pad on the fourth floor of a jutting tower provides a new home, a fresh start, and a new chapter in his life.

Little does he know of the weird and wonderful journey he’s about to take, or the effects a temporal rift has on the building plumbing and his troublesome toaster.

He’s living in the middle of an anomaly sandwich, with a retro woman upstairs, and a feisty hippy downstairs. But will either of them become anything more than friends?

And, If it came down to it, would he be able to make the ultimate sacrifice to save a

Could he go back to an era before the internet and smartphones?

Audible Audio

First published June 4, 2020

240 people are currently reading
274 people want to read

About the author

Adam Eccles

9 books73 followers
Cynical tech nerd author of romcoms and the like.

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5 stars
774 (61%)
4 stars
352 (27%)
3 stars
110 (8%)
2 stars
16 (1%)
1 star
6 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
Profile Image for Tony.
615 reviews49 followers
April 7, 2021
At times like this, we all need a feel-good tale to raise the spirits and this certainly fits the bill.

Absolutely loved this gentle tale, give it a go, I’m sure you will too!
Profile Image for Richard Tubb.
Author 5 books30 followers
September 22, 2020
A wonderful, heart warming time travel story!

I picked this book up as a time-travel nerd, intrigued to see how the author tackled the subject.

This is a great read! I devoured the book in a few days.

The characters involved are really likeable, and the protagonist, a 40-something computer geek, was very relatable!

I found the story heartwarming, and very character driven. What would you do if you found you could go back 30 years in time?
Profile Image for T. E. Avery.
23 reviews
March 15, 2024
Intriguing And Entertaining

I enjoyed this well written and fun filled romp. Well done. The characters are very good. The plot is good also.
Profile Image for Ginny.
219 reviews
May 20, 2024
A story of time travel, romance and tea - lots of tea.. There was quite a bit of tech jargon that went over my head and all of the Brit speak was a bit twee (brekkie for breakfast, cuppa for a cup of tea); however, I do plan to employ the phrase "useless knob" whenever possible. A decent, easy read. 3.5 stars.
Profile Image for John Brown.
22 reviews1 follower
September 5, 2020
A genuinely good read

There are no explosions, no revelations, no invasions or rents in space... this is a genuinely human scale story of someone who, although a bit bruised by life, wants to do the right things. Plus time travel!
Loved it.
Profile Image for Deanne .
31 reviews2 followers
March 7, 2021
Time travelling love story. Finished in a day. Beautiful book and characters. Slightly predictable but wildly enjoyable. Definitely recommend this as an easy and pleasurable read.
520 reviews1 follower
June 14, 2020
Jamie is a recent divorcee; he needs a job and he needs friends. when he moves into an apartment block, he meets Anne., Bert and molly who all become tied up in his life

Anne seems to be living in the past but is she ...
Bert thinks he knows Jamie from somewhere in his past
and molly looks like someone he knows

I loved this book for the characters and the pace. the story line and plot are both excellent.
The back story is amazing .
another great book from Mr Eccles

89 reviews
June 8, 2020
Smashing read

Fantastic book , enjoyed the time travel aspect .
Gotta love Jamie other characters so relatable.
Read all Adams books this is the best yet .
If you want a really good read then I sincerely recommend this .
141 reviews
August 31, 2020
Glad to have found this author

Fantastic read,I did guess a fair few points of the plot but it was such a great read,it didn't take away from the story. Already downloaded another book by this author
32 reviews
September 14, 2020
Really enjoyable

I love reading time travel books. It's the great question we all ask ourselves a couple of million times...... What if I could go back?
This is a good book by a new author and well worth a read.
Look forward to reading Adams other books 👍
5 reviews1 follower
September 16, 2020
You really care

I loved this excellently and intelligently crafted time travel novel. Very nostalgic too. You really do care about what happens to the characters. No spoilers: but one very moving moment at about 83% of the way in. Well done.
Profile Image for Paul Madsen.
497 reviews4 followers
September 26, 2025
This starts slow but builds to a good finish

As a fan of time travel tales I enjoyed this as with all the other books by Adam Eccles. I kept waiting for him to finally go back to the twisted staircase. Then the tale could conclude properly. 😃
6 reviews1 follower
June 29, 2020
Great

Really enjoyed this story and will be looking for more of Adam Eccles books. Great characters and flowed well. Would definitely recommend this.
4 reviews
August 19, 2020
Great time reading.

Really enjoyed this book. Lots of interesting time travel paradoxes to think about and great story. On to the next book!
Profile Image for Luisa Calvo.
11 reviews1 follower
October 10, 2020
Very enjoyable! Humorous and interesting. I do love a bit of time travel. :)
9 reviews
October 16, 2020
A chance encounter

With Adam's book, I won't give you any spoilers in the review. I did enjoy the book though and will be reading his others.
Profile Image for Sam Weiss.
Author 3 books31 followers
December 31, 2020
I planned on reading this over the course of the next two weeks... instead I finished it in two days. Oops. Hilariously written, with a cool twist on time travel and the functions within it. Gave myself a bit of a headache trying to figure out the timeline, but the best thing to do with temporal paradoxes is to just ignore them. They'll eventually go away ;)
1 review
March 28, 2021
Really liked this book

I didn’t know anything about this book when I downloaded the sample but was sucked in really quickly. Well written, fun and entertaining. I’m downloading other books by the author now!
Profile Image for Georgia Linkeviciene.
101 reviews3 followers
July 3, 2024
The ending of this had me welling up! It was the perfect ending for all the characters and was such an interesting concept
Profile Image for Alan.
152 reviews
September 6, 2020
One of the best books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Absolutely stunning book. Not what I was expecting. Which was just another time travel book. But, this was exceptional. Brilliant story, genuine characters. Without a doubt one of my top 3 books of the year. A real delight, a sort of time traveller love story. But down ti earth and normal.
Profile Image for andy foxon.
8 reviews
September 18, 2020
Recommended

Absolutely loved this book. It's not often that I can't put a book down but I read this in a matter of days. Loved the story and characters. My only problem is like others have said is that I wish it was longer. Highly recommended
368 reviews
October 10, 2021
Well, once again I ordered a book I had already read, but didn't quite remember it.

Happily, this was definitely worthy of a fresh read! So imaginative! The characters are fun and believable, the dialog is clever, and there is actually a plot! I enjoyed it very much, thank you.
Profile Image for Danny Farham.
138 reviews7 followers
August 23, 2021
Excellent. My favourite book of the year so far. For some reason, despite suggestions from goodreads and Amazon,I’d never read anything by Adam Eccles before. I am now going to read everything he’s written.
Great fun.
25 reviews
March 8, 2021
Another fantastic read!

Thankyou for another fantastic read, you never disappoint. Loved the storyline, the characters, and your imagination. Now onto your next one 🥰
Profile Image for Kay.
204 reviews16 followers
August 19, 2021
Enjoyable time travel tale. I think a lot of the plot was quite obvious but still, I enjoyed listening to this audiobook.
Profile Image for Kristi Oleson.
5 reviews
January 12, 2022
I read in 24 hours!

Loved this book and it’s detailed characters, original story, and excellent plot twist! I’ll definitely be looking for more from Adam Eccles…well done!
425 reviews7 followers
March 31, 2021
This was a sweet story of time travel and a man finding himself. I felt it could have been better.

One of the big twists is telegraphed so early in the story, I was sure it could not be the twist the author had planned. But it was. Also, the humour didn't land with me as much as I had hoped it would.

I also felt the standard issues with time travel were not completely explained. It was a decent read, but I didn't like it as much as some of the reviewers.
Profile Image for Sophie Watson.
48 reviews1 follower
September 5, 2020
Good fun

Nice, easy light read which made me smile. Thoroughly enjoyed. Worthwhile curling up with on a rainy day after a busy week 😊
1 review
October 20, 2022
Like a Feather

"Need a Little Time" is a book that is not frightfully funny, nor astoundingly clever.

It is not social commentary, nor comedic romance.

Not very technical, nor dumbed down.

You might even go so far as to say it is ordinary, common, even.

And I would agree with you. So long as we both understand that those two adjectives also describe those long, simple feathers that grace the ground on some occasions.

The white ones, or the barred goose feathers, or the crow feathers.

Often overlooked in their littered background, but beautiful in their delicacy to the stopping passersby.

If I had to describe this tale in a word, that would be the one:

Delicate

Profile Image for Julia Bell.
Author 13 books212 followers
November 22, 2023
Need a Little Time kept me turning the pages and I'm happy to give four stars for this story. I thought the ending was very good, since Jamie's life came full circle on the cusp of the pandemic. But I did wonder about living the last thirty years again and knowing all the terrible things that were going to happen, like Grenfell Tower, Dunblane, 9-11 and many more. I would have wanted to prevent them.
I liked Jamie very much and was fascinated by his trials and tribulations. By the halfway point, I had an inkling what was going to happen and that made me read on.
I did think that Anna's flat was a little old fashioned for the 1990's. I'm positive that with the advent of CDs in the 80's, vinyl records and record players were not seen much.
I can recommend this story for those who like time travel romances.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews

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