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A Line You Have Traced
Cloud Atlas meets This Is How You Lose the Time War in this gorgeous speculative novel that explores how a mysterious red journal connects three women born centuries apart in East London.
In the Jewish East End of post-World War I London, Bea, a young shopkeeper's wife, is visited by an uncanny figure she believes is an angel. She tries to understand the meaning of these visits as the life she is building with her new husband is threatened by fascists who are increasingly targeting her friends and neighbors.
Kay spends nights partying with her friends in contemporary East London's underground queer scene, where one of them is gaining fame as a drag queen. She entertains herself by imagining that people she passes on the street are time travelers who have come back in time specifically to visit her. As she becomes infatuated with the brilliant O, she discovers an aged red notebook that seems to be the journal of an ancestor who was also visited by a mystical being.
One hundred years in the future, against a backdrop of climate emergency and violent oppression, Ess lives off the grid as part of a collective that's planning for the end of human life on Earth. After uncovering an ancient worn red book in an archive, she is invited to a nearby commune to help with a critical journey into the past to possibly help save the present.
Epic in scope, with unforgettable characters and a rare clarity of vision, A Line You Have Traced asks profound questions about how we might survive and engage with the world, and with each other before it’s too late.
In the Jewish East End of post-World War I London, Bea, a young shopkeeper's wife, is visited by an uncanny figure she believes is an angel. She tries to understand the meaning of these visits as the life she is building with her new husband is threatened by fascists who are increasingly targeting her friends and neighbors.
Kay spends nights partying with her friends in contemporary East London's underground queer scene, where one of them is gaining fame as a drag queen. She entertains herself by imagining that people she passes on the street are time travelers who have come back in time specifically to visit her. As she becomes infatuated with the brilliant O, she discovers an aged red notebook that seems to be the journal of an ancestor who was also visited by a mystical being.
One hundred years in the future, against a backdrop of climate emergency and violent oppression, Ess lives off the grid as part of a collective that's planning for the end of human life on Earth. After uncovering an ancient worn red book in an archive, she is invited to a nearby commune to help with a critical journey into the past to possibly help save the present.
Epic in scope, with unforgettable characters and a rare clarity of vision, A Line You Have Traced asks profound questions about how we might survive and engage with the world, and with each other before it’s too late.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published April 15, 2025
18 people are currently reading
404 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 7, 2025
I really enjoyed this novel. An innovative exploration of what it means to face "the end of the world." I teach a class at Columbia about apocalypses and am perhaps exhaustingly familiar with the genre, yet this novel still managed to impress me. If you're a fan of dystopias that might not be so dystopian after all . . . this is a book for you.
March 17, 2025
I looove a little time travel and exploring human relationships through time
February 3, 2025
...when we talk about time, we should really talk about history, because that's the only element of time that we understand. ... some parts of time are actually thinner than others ... what wears it thin? Stories, narrative, expression. [loc. 2422]
A Line You Have Traced is the story of three women living in East London, in three different centuries: Bea, a silversmith's wife, in the 1930s; Kay, devoting her life to partying in something like contemporary London; and Ess, living in a near-future collective which believes that humans will soon be extinct. (All the character names in this novel are letters of the alphabet, from Bea's husband Ade to Ess's friend Zizi. This became annoying until the story really got going.) The three are related by more than blood. There's an angel whose appearances Bea records in a small red notebook, Kay's fantasies about being watched by time travellers, Ess's friendship with an elderly man whose vast personal archive of photographs and documents holds the key to an ambitious plan. There are also three cats, named Tuna, Mackerel and Sardine, who may also be related...
Each viewpoint was fascinating, though perhaps Kay's less so (because more familiar) than Bea's or Ess's. Bea's story includes the story of her husband's friendship with a novelist, who presents a warped and misogynist portrait of Bea in his account of Ade's life: it also includes the Battle of Cable Street and the rise of fascism. Kay's account is a portrait of contemporary queer life, with the looming climate emergency and a lack of direction. And Ess's future, with its antique Tupperware and acceptance of doom -- and its radical solutions -- feels horribly credible.
Dunnett's prose is fluent, and each voice is distinctive: she's very good at dialogue, and her depictions of the changing face of misogyny -- especially in the context of female fertility -- over the three narratives is acute. I'm still not clear about the novel's resolution: Dunnett presents us with possibilities rather than a definitive event. But that's the nature of the beast, that's the multiverse, that's history for you.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 15th April 2025.
June 18, 2025
Would have loved to give this 3 stars because I really enjoyed the writing. However, I feel there was little to care about throughout the book. As a reader, there has to be something to care about from the beginning, but I think it may have been the author’s intention to keep that “something” mysterious which didn’t really work well here. I felt like I was missing something for the entire book which made reading a bit of a drag. Cool concept but just missing some meat/explicit meaning.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2025
Urg. This book was a drag. I kept waiting for something, anything, to happened. There was almost something, but that didn’t even show up til 2/3 of the way through, and it was dumb and didn’t really go anywhere. Waste of reading time.
June 12, 2025
Waste of time.
March 1, 2025
A line you have traced is a novel centred around three women in different time period all linked at first by a notebook.
Set in east London, we venture to the past in Edwardian London we meet Bea. A Jewish woman with her husband and his interesting friend, who believes she is being visited by an angel. Kay a current view of a millennial, who believes that time traveler are visiting and Ess the future vision of time that can unwillingly travel that links others two journeys.
It is an interesting read but I did find the story slow and at times hard to follow however once time slips start to happen the story I was able to be more invested. I did feel in places that the story did leave items without a conclusion which I found frustrating as the novel is not a short read but I suppose links to the future or present is forever changing with each persons perspective or decisions.
If you enjoy reading something different this is definitely for you. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for an opportunity to read this prior to release on the 10th April.
Set in east London, we venture to the past in Edwardian London we meet Bea. A Jewish woman with her husband and his interesting friend, who believes she is being visited by an angel. Kay a current view of a millennial, who believes that time traveler are visiting and Ess the future vision of time that can unwillingly travel that links others two journeys.
It is an interesting read but I did find the story slow and at times hard to follow however once time slips start to happen the story I was able to be more invested. I did feel in places that the story did leave items without a conclusion which I found frustrating as the novel is not a short read but I suppose links to the future or present is forever changing with each persons perspective or decisions.
If you enjoy reading something different this is definitely for you. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for an opportunity to read this prior to release on the 10th April.
did-not-finish
June 26, 2025This book requires a level of patience that I'm not able to give it at the moment. It's well-written but it's slow. It's told in three timelines and POVs. Information is divulged in little vague hints and bits. It's intriguing for a while, but it gets frustrating. Also frustrating, and what led me to stop reading: Bea's But, yeah, well-written!
November 10, 2025
A great concept with all the themes I love to read about: female experience, time travel, cats, queerness, end of days, cults, fertility and philosophy.
While I’d probably give the plot a 3 - there are some loose ends and elements could have been fleshed out a lot more despite it being almost 400 pages - I just adored her writing; rich and atmospheric with brilliant dialogue. I enjoyed the general feeling of mystery and dreaminess, and how she drip fed tiny details that make the reader feel like a time travelling spy pulling all the pieces together.
Look forward to what she’ll be writing next!
While I’d probably give the plot a 3 - there are some loose ends and elements could have been fleshed out a lot more despite it being almost 400 pages - I just adored her writing; rich and atmospheric with brilliant dialogue. I enjoyed the general feeling of mystery and dreaminess, and how she drip fed tiny details that make the reader feel like a time travelling spy pulling all the pieces together.
Look forward to what she’ll be writing next!
April 30, 2025
Early twentieth century, Bea, a young Jewish wife works with her husband, Ade, in a silverware shop. As the political landscape shifts around them, the couple prosper financially and move out to the countryside fringing the marshes east of London. Bea is lonely and confused about the presence of Haich, who has inserted himself into their marriage, and claims to be writing a novel about them. She finds solace in the marshes, and writing about the comforting presence of a being she believes to be an angel in her little red journal.
In a time like now, Kay is finding her place in a world troubled with political unrest. She distracts herself from an uncertain future, and a stream of temporary jobs, by pursuing a vibrant (if unfulfilling) night-life with her friends, and exploring her sexuality. One day at her grandmother's house she discovers an old red journal and is intrigued by its stories of a visiting angel...
A hundred years into the future, Ess lives in a world brought it its knees by greed, political turmoil, and climate change. She believes that the days of humankind are numbered. But then she is offered the chance to travel back in time to try to set things right - a journey tied to an old red journal she has discovered...
Essentially, this slow-burn debut is a literary adventure story, dropping in on the lives of three women separated in time, who are connected through the presence of Bea's little red book . Their narratives weave and blend together, slowly drawing you into their experiences, and I am so impressed with Dunnett's ambition and the scope of her imagination.
Through time, Dunnett returns to the marshes, the relationship of the women with this environment, and the significance of Bea's writings about the 'angel'. In many ways, it is not apparent that this will be a speculative novel, until the surprise twists come via Ess' part in the story, as so much of this book is about the domestic, friendship, romantic, and family dramas of the three women (which Dunnett writes about with skill). I really enjoyed that although different, they each face quite similar dilemmas when it comes to them finding their space in an increasingly troubled world, and making their voices heard. Beautifully explored themes of legacy, and motherhood abound.
However, a speculative story this is, and a very clever one at that. It conspires that Ess and Bea are two ends of a timeline that has gone seriously wrong somewhere, and it is down to Ess to try to put things right. It is not immediately obvious where Kay fits into the big picture of this time travelling rescue mission, but eventually you realise she is important pivot-point in the story.
This book was something of a feminist odyssey through times of turmoil, with lovely reflections of tracing the line that connects the trials, tribulations and triumphs of Bea, Kay and Ess. It is very hard to explain quite how much the novel gets under your skin, but I came to love all three as the meanderings of Dunnett's tale developed, and the moment when the three meet is emotional dynamite.
I highly recommend this stunning debut if you feel like losing yourself in a Cloud Atlas type tale that provokes your thoughts - especially when it comes to tricky time loops! It manages to span nicely pitched historical fiction, contemporary drama, and dystopian invention all in one fascinating package - and makes room for some welcome kitty characters too!
In a time like now, Kay is finding her place in a world troubled with political unrest. She distracts herself from an uncertain future, and a stream of temporary jobs, by pursuing a vibrant (if unfulfilling) night-life with her friends, and exploring her sexuality. One day at her grandmother's house she discovers an old red journal and is intrigued by its stories of a visiting angel...
A hundred years into the future, Ess lives in a world brought it its knees by greed, political turmoil, and climate change. She believes that the days of humankind are numbered. But then she is offered the chance to travel back in time to try to set things right - a journey tied to an old red journal she has discovered...
Essentially, this slow-burn debut is a literary adventure story, dropping in on the lives of three women separated in time, who are connected through the presence of Bea's little red book . Their narratives weave and blend together, slowly drawing you into their experiences, and I am so impressed with Dunnett's ambition and the scope of her imagination.
Through time, Dunnett returns to the marshes, the relationship of the women with this environment, and the significance of Bea's writings about the 'angel'. In many ways, it is not apparent that this will be a speculative novel, until the surprise twists come via Ess' part in the story, as so much of this book is about the domestic, friendship, romantic, and family dramas of the three women (which Dunnett writes about with skill). I really enjoyed that although different, they each face quite similar dilemmas when it comes to them finding their space in an increasingly troubled world, and making their voices heard. Beautifully explored themes of legacy, and motherhood abound.
However, a speculative story this is, and a very clever one at that. It conspires that Ess and Bea are two ends of a timeline that has gone seriously wrong somewhere, and it is down to Ess to try to put things right. It is not immediately obvious where Kay fits into the big picture of this time travelling rescue mission, but eventually you realise she is important pivot-point in the story.
This book was something of a feminist odyssey through times of turmoil, with lovely reflections of tracing the line that connects the trials, tribulations and triumphs of Bea, Kay and Ess. It is very hard to explain quite how much the novel gets under your skin, but I came to love all three as the meanderings of Dunnett's tale developed, and the moment when the three meet is emotional dynamite.
I highly recommend this stunning debut if you feel like losing yourself in a Cloud Atlas type tale that provokes your thoughts - especially when it comes to tricky time loops! It manages to span nicely pitched historical fiction, contemporary drama, and dystopian invention all in one fascinating package - and makes room for some welcome kitty characters too!
April 18, 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Cloud Atlas meets This Is How You Lose the Time War in this gorgeous speculative novel that explores how a mysterious red journal connects three women born centuries apart in East London.
In the Jewish East End of post-World War I London, Bea, a young shopkeeper's wife, is visited by an uncanny figure she believes is an angel. She tries to understand the meaning of these visits as the life she is building with her new husband is threatened by fascists who are increasingly targeting her friends and neighbors.
Kay spends nights partying with her friends in contemporary East London's underground queer scene, where one of them is gaining fame as a drag queen. She entertains herself by imagining that people she passes on the street are time travelers who have come back in time specifically to visit her. As she becomes infatuated with the brilliant O, she discovers an aged red notebook that seems to be the journal of an ancestor who was also visited by a mystical being.
One hundred years in the future, against a backdrop of climate emergency and violent oppression, Ess lives off the grid as part of a collective that's planning for the end of human life on Earth. After uncovering an ancient worn red book in an archive, she is invited to a nearby commune to help with a critical journey into the past to possibly help save the present.
Epic in scope, with unforgettable characters and a rare clarity of vision, A Line You Have Traced asks profound questions about how we might survive and engage with the world, and with each other before it’s too late.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I was not the biggest booster of Cloud Atlas, book or film. Ambitious, complex, occasionally obscure...I've mellowed in the decade-plus since it showed up and no longer assert "obscurantist"...that work was not for me.
Maybe add lesbians and I'll find its plot charming?
Tuna, Mackerel and Sardine (the c-a-t-s) almost derailed the exercise in rehabilitation.
The past, present, and future gag is retreaded for this iteration with queer text, in place of the far more prevalent subtext, and set in motion by the unfolding traumas of each era's culture and all leading into the future's existential changes threatening civilization. It works well because it simultaneously provides perspective and focuses the reader onto the severity of the stakes overall.
Turns out adding lesbians, just like in life, fixes most things.
No fifth star from me because, do I need to say it, c-a-t-s. Be impressed and amazed it didn't knock my usual four-and-a-half stars off! The author's got solid writing chops and a very accurate story-laser to get four stars out of me. Telling a story of how each generation feels it's meeting its challenges, showing how they always interconnect, and never giving a single indication that any one of these characters could be straight and still have the same story, is good work indeed.
Go get one. It will please the weirdos who don't hate cats as much as I do solidly more than even me.
The Publisher Says: Cloud Atlas meets This Is How You Lose the Time War in this gorgeous speculative novel that explores how a mysterious red journal connects three women born centuries apart in East London.
In the Jewish East End of post-World War I London, Bea, a young shopkeeper's wife, is visited by an uncanny figure she believes is an angel. She tries to understand the meaning of these visits as the life she is building with her new husband is threatened by fascists who are increasingly targeting her friends and neighbors.
Kay spends nights partying with her friends in contemporary East London's underground queer scene, where one of them is gaining fame as a drag queen. She entertains herself by imagining that people she passes on the street are time travelers who have come back in time specifically to visit her. As she becomes infatuated with the brilliant O, she discovers an aged red notebook that seems to be the journal of an ancestor who was also visited by a mystical being.
One hundred years in the future, against a backdrop of climate emergency and violent oppression, Ess lives off the grid as part of a collective that's planning for the end of human life on Earth. After uncovering an ancient worn red book in an archive, she is invited to a nearby commune to help with a critical journey into the past to possibly help save the present.
Epic in scope, with unforgettable characters and a rare clarity of vision, A Line You Have Traced asks profound questions about how we might survive and engage with the world, and with each other before it’s too late.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I was not the biggest booster of Cloud Atlas, book or film. Ambitious, complex, occasionally obscure...I've mellowed in the decade-plus since it showed up and no longer assert "obscurantist"...that work was not for me.
Maybe add lesbians and I'll find its plot charming?
Tuna, Mackerel and Sardine (the c-a-t-s) almost derailed the exercise in rehabilitation.
The past, present, and future gag is retreaded for this iteration with queer text, in place of the far more prevalent subtext, and set in motion by the unfolding traumas of each era's culture and all leading into the future's existential changes threatening civilization. It works well because it simultaneously provides perspective and focuses the reader onto the severity of the stakes overall.
Turns out adding lesbians, just like in life, fixes most things.
No fifth star from me because, do I need to say it, c-a-t-s. Be impressed and amazed it didn't knock my usual four-and-a-half stars off! The author's got solid writing chops and a very accurate story-laser to get four stars out of me. Telling a story of how each generation feels it's meeting its challenges, showing how they always interconnect, and never giving a single indication that any one of these characters could be straight and still have the same story, is good work indeed.
Go get one. It will please the weirdos who don't hate cats as much as I do solidly more than even me.
July 22, 2025
Beautifully written speculative fiction about three women from different times whose connected lives come together in a unique way to change the course of the future as the world approaches an environmental collapse. Bea lives in Post World War I London living a quiet life in Jewish East London, confused by the sporadic, mysterious visits by an 'angel.' Kay hangs out with her friends in contemporary East London's underground queer scene finding herself visited by time travelers. While years in the future, Ess, part of a group that is preparing for the end of human life on earth, becomes caught up in a plan to make a journey into the past to help save the present.
Roisin Dunnett's debut novel is an intricately plotted portrait of three unique women and the unbelievable encounters they must make sense of. With deep roots in the exploration of personal history, it's a unique and vibrant work.
Roisin Dunnett's debut novel is an intricately plotted portrait of three unique women and the unbelievable encounters they must make sense of. With deep roots in the exploration of personal history, it's a unique and vibrant work.
November 8, 2024
A Line You Have Traced is a uniquely written speculative novel about the lives of three women centuries apart from each other. The amount of hidden details, intricate world-building, and the candid sentence structure make this an unsettling, yet beautiful story. Though it is slow to action and the blunt dealing caused me to linger towards the end, the character's stories were enjoyable. It was refreshing and the conversations the book brought forth were engaging. I recommend this to anyone a fan of speculative and literary fiction.
November 15, 2025
Oh, this was good!!! An Independent Bookstore Day pickup from April. Three women, loosely connected across generations, different London times, a possible future Utopian society, the keeping of a journal. I loved all the characters so much. It really pulled me right along.
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Also really impressed by the variance in POV (two sections are third limited, one is first), and how effective that was in distinguishing experience as you went along.
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If you like Connie Willis, you would like this. The layering of the characters and their times is so rich.
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Also really impressed by the variance in POV (two sections are third limited, one is first), and how effective that was in distinguishing experience as you went along.
.
If you like Connie Willis, you would like this. The layering of the characters and their times is so rich.
April 18, 2025
The writing style is authoritative and compelling, which kept me reading even though the pace is extremely slow. The characterisation is well-done, their struggles relatable. The plot is... ambiguous. I'm generally a big fan of ambiguity, but this took it to the point where I was left feeling that I had entirely missed the point. Or that there wasn't one. It is unsettling, which I think is the author's intention.
June 22, 2025
For a debut novel I was impressed with the rich prose and world-building around the Basin. I’m not sure the story stuck its ending or gave it the time needed, but I enjoyed the characters and journey.
May 12, 2025
Strange book. The time travel is less than satisfying. Extra star for the kooky Alphabet names. I kept thinking "how long can she keep this going?" the whole book is the answer
July 16, 2025
Somewhere between a 3 and a 4. Ambitious concept for a debut novel and she mostly pulls it off!
July 17, 2025
had the misfortune of being the first book i read after atmosphere, but i just didn’t get it …
October 8, 2025
A slow starter. I nearly gave up but was very glad I didn't
October 9, 2025
Disappointing ending...had hoped for more!
October 28, 2025
really tried with this one, but just could not get into it - nothing happens in any of the timelines...
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews