Roger Sayers

I received this books as a review copy via the Library Thing members giveaway. Firstly I apologise for the delay in posting a review - I took my time not to read the book, but to digest it. This is an ambitious and well thought out book in three clear segments. It begins in or around the early 1980s - the reader has to work that out when our heroine Carol, and indeed she is a heroine, is in her early 80s. Carol is a widow and, after the death of her son in WWII, alone in the world. She lives show more in the English city of Bath and one day she visits the famous baths from which Bath gets its name, she dips her hand into the water and gets and algae on her hands which she wipes off. We next meet Carol as she visits a doctor. Carol has changed her name to Copper, and her appearance is greatly changed, the years have dropped off her and she has the appearance of being around 30 years old, with all the vitality and associated changes in life one would expect from a 30 year old woman including being capable of falling pregnant. The doctor is astounded, Copper has tried to handle the changes without assistance, but her mental health is not good. The doctor brings in a small group of specialists who examine Copper in a secluded ward of Bath hospital. Within a relatively short time, a secret research facility is set up in the grounds of the hospital and a tribe of specialists are trying to work out what it is about the visible difference in Copper's blood, how did she acquire it, can it be transmitted and, like all good scientists, can it be replicated. The research goes on for some 5 years and in that time it is revealed that in and around Bath there are others like Copper, some very,very old. In this section, it is important to remember that we are reading of a time a few decades ago, so things like mobile phones don't exist and they use video tapes and tape recorders.This is the nuts and bolts section of the book.Copper is a pragmatic and sensible woman who is quite prepared to be prodded and examined in the name of scientific research. She also falls in love with a man who is around her apparent age, and she has to tell him the truth that she is over 80years of age - this section is well written and quite believable, in fact one feels quite at home with the scientific community who have gathered to examine this phenomena. At the end of the segment it is revealed that it is now possible to replicate the virus but it only works with certain blood groups (Never stated).

The second part of the book is called Julia. This is centered upon Julia who is the last citizen of the Roman Empire to be alive, having acquired the eternal life virus as a child in Roman Bath. Her we learn of how Julia became to be known as the Lady of the Lake, the protector of the Lake People who lived near Bath in a huge lake with numerous islands. This era crosses the arrival of the Vikings, and Arthur, and Merlin, all of whom we meet as they move in and out of the story. The People of the Lake are old, but, we learn there are even older people, ones who created a network of standing stones to be a communication system not only across Britain and Europe but with other stones in other countries. - At the time of these revelations we are barely into the internet era on earth,so the concepts have no parallel for the characters we are reading about. In this segment we also meet John who has stopped aging and now looks as though he is the brother of his own son and daughter. John's wife who is in her 50s is having a hard time coming to understand what is going on, and the two children are not much better.To hide the embarrassing failure to age of their father, the family have moved regularly and so have had a very unstable life. Fortunately, it is here that the work laid down in the first segment is found to be beneficial, as the scientist have made a help kit for others who they may encounter with Copper's virus, the help kit is meant to gently but rapidly introduce the ageless person and any family members into what is known scientifically about their condition and what can be done. It has been found that to retain the youth one must visit certain standing stones and just touch them to get a 'boost' or rejuvenation. It is the second segment which caused this book to receive a loss of half a mark and it would have lost more but for the quality of the story telling. Segment two - Julia is not peppered with typos, it is strewn with typos such that the impression is given that section one and three were written first and section two was rushed for publication and the editor believed the quality of work of the other two segments carried through to Section 2 - it didn't and that is slack editing. This segment could be the end of The Aqua Chronicles, however I am so glad that Sayers continued and completed the work with the third section Beowulf.

Section three is Beowulf, not the famous poem, but a rather naughty Viking who with Freya used to get into all sorts of trouble in their village in old Denmark. When things got a bit hot for young Beowulf and Freya they skipped the country on a Viking ship and ended up in what is now England, and settled down in Yorkshire. This segment is rollicking funny as Freya and Beowulf are called by the ancient ones to not only help the People of the Lake but they are spirited to visit Copper and Colin her fiancee to be wedding guests. Freya and Beowulf's experiences in 20th Century Bath and later Yorkshire are written with humour and yet the understanding of how just one moment can result in being reminded that you are not in your time. After all, all those who have got the virus have had centuries to get used to living through massive changes as they arrived (usually) gradually, but poor Freya and Beowulf and just upped and landed in the future, and then, the past. In this segment, as in all the others, Sayers puts in small asides letting the reader know what is happening with other characters and so it is here that we learn that Copper has raised another family and living happy and well in the hills outside of Bath as the 21st Century settles in.

I have this as a Kindle copy and it is one I am determined to keep as I want to re-read it more than once.
Congratulations to Roger Sayers on creating a page turning interesting tale filled with humour and thoughtful concepts. show less