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What Time is Love?

The captivating and gorgeously romantic debut you'll fall head over heels for in 2023

Holly Williams author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Orion Publishing Co

Published:26th May '22

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What Time is Love? cover

'It's the new One Day' FABULOUS
'Delightful, insightful and immersive' KATE EBERLEN
'Invigorating [and] fascinating' GUARDIAN
'Holly's beautiful prose smoulders, crackles and roars' DAISY BUCHANAN

1947. 1967. 1987.
When Violet and Albert first meet, they are always twenty.

Three decades.

Over the years, Violet and Albert's lives collide again and again: beneath Oxford's spires, on the rolling hills around Abergavenny, in stately homes and in feminist squats. And as each decade ends, a new love story begins...

Two people.
Together, they are electric and the world is glittering with possibility. But against the shifting times of each era, Violet and Albert must overcome differences in class, gender, privilege and ambition. Each time their lives entwine, it will change everything.

One moment is all it takes...

As their eyes first meet, for a split-second it's as if the clocks have stopped. Nothing else matters. Yet whichever decade brings them together, Violet and Albert are soon forced to question: what if they met the right person at the wrong time?

A sweeping, nostalgic and dazzlingly immersive love story, perfect for fans of The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett, Miss You by Kate Eberlen and Normal People by Sally Rooney.

A startlingly great debut. Holly's beautiful prose smoulders, crackles and roars, but it's the storytelling that really astonishes. Propulsive, immersive, a book you can really live in. This book is masterfully crafted, brilliantly socially observed, but most of all it's a dazzlingly and painfully resonant exploration of the way women live, and how our freedom must be cherished and protected. * Daisy Buchanan *
What Time is Love? is not only a beautifully told love story but also a fascinating account of the changing social mores of the 20th century. I found it delightful, insightful and immersive. * Kate Eberlen *
A unique and wonderfully crafted debut, What Time Is Love? has it all - nostalgia and romance, captivating characters and stunning prose. It's a truly tender, thought-provoking exploration of what makes a relationship work - and of how, when it comes to love, timing is sometimes everything. An unforgettable story with writing that sparkles: a gem of a read. * Holly Miller *
Holly Williams has written a stunning, skilful, deftly drawn, cockle-warmer of a novel that somehow sweeps you through half a century while feeling like a leisurely afternoon. Prose so good I couldn't stop underlining. * Lauren Bravo *
A fiercely original novel on the powerful effect circumstance and timing has on life, on love. A brave and astute write on politics, with feisty and complex protagonists in Albert and Violet, What Time Is Love? skilfully excavates the great questions of our modern age; the battle for equality, the difficulty that is marriage and the inter-generational effects of class on the individual. A wonderful, original and powerful debut by the very talented Holly Williams. She is wild and brilliant. * Elaine Feeney *
Heartwarming * BELLA *
A clever concept that casts a light on the different social mores of changing times, but remains a love story at its heart * BEST *
An invigorating debut * THE OBSERVER *
An engaging debut [that] asks an eternal question: what if you meet the right person at the wrong time? * DAILY MAIL *
The debut novel from arts journalist Holly Williams is already being compared to David Nicholls' One Day * EVENING STANDARD *

ISBN: 9781398706293

Dimensions: 236mm x 160mm x 36mm

Weight: 600g

400 pages