What is music for? Who owns it? Could you live without it?
My current novel, The Rhythm of Time, was inspired by the decades I spent as a professional musician and composer. THE RHYTHM OF TIME interweaves the stories of three musicians in 18th, 20th, and 23rd century London. As their parallel timelines unfold, we discover how music shapes their lives and what links them: a lost composer, erased from history when her manipulative husband appropriates her work; the quest to reclaim her stolen compositions; a 1970s cult hit warning of a world without music; and an epic struggle with a Big Brother-esque AI regime to make music in a soulless world where it’s been outlawed for a century.
18th Century
Mayfair, 1762: Percy’s father expects him to be a great composer—he’s a Frobisher, after all. But Percy lacks talent—and homosexuality is a capital offence. However, their housekeeper’s daughter, Elizabeth Meeks, is a prodigy. Percy marries her, steals her compositions, and is lauded as the “English Mozart.” But fame and syphilis unhinge him. As Percy splinters, Elizabeth composes.
20th Century
Two centuries later, twelve year old Robert Jones sings in the Frobisher Requiem and realises music will be his life. His dad expects him to be a plumber, but Rob escapes from their East End council flat with a scholarship to Percy’s old college: Kings, Cambridge. His research uncovers anomalies in the Frobisher pieces, which convince him that Elizabeth is the real English Mozart. But his thesis is rejected. Disillusioned with academia, Rob starts a band and has a cult hit, The Rhythm of Time, warning of a world without music.
23rd Century
Fast forward another three centuries and that world is a reality. In the 23rd century, there’s no music. Control eradicated such subversive distractions in the Realignment (having stabilised the climate and saved humanity from extinction). But there’s a glitch in Retro’s brainware—she has music in her soul in this soulless world. Inspired by Rob’s prophetic song, she assembles a group of fellow Glitches and starts a revolution.
The Rhythm of Time is a musical time machine—a portal into a parallel world where Mozart, Hendrix, and a 23rd century retrologist rub shoulders. It’s a celebration of the magical phenomenon of music: how it evolves, and yet continues to connect us like nothing else; how it’s the glue that binds a society and makes the unbearable bearable.
Each of the three stories (historical, contemporary and speculative) has now received some success in contests …
- Early drafts of the opening chapters were long-listed for the 2022 Bridport and Yoevil Novel Prizes and chosen as “notable” in the 2023 Gutsy Chapter One Prize.
- The opening 10,000 words made it to the 2024 Cinnamon Press literature award long-list.
- An extract from the historical story was one of the Judges’ Choices in the 2024 Hammond House International Literary Prize and long-listed for the 2025 Ink of Ages Historical Fiction Prize.
- Another extract from the contemporary story (titled ‘The Rhythm of Life’) was short listed for the 2025 Write By The Sea Flash Fiction contest.
- The opening chapters of the contemporary and historical stories have been long-listed for the 2025 Page Turner Awards.
- An extract from the future story (set two centuries in the future and entitled ‘The Future is Glitchy’) received an Honourable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest.
The novel has received encouraging reviews from my ACR (advanced copy) readers (see below), and I’m currently seeking a publisher (watch this space).
What ARC Readers Say …
“The Rhythm of Time is an ambitious and remarkable novel that’s happily hard to categorize: part historical, part contemporary, part sci-fi. And all of it marvelously rich with singular characters, affecting details, and a steady rhythm that pulses from start to finish in a way that makes you want to play piano, dance to the beat, and sing your way to the end. Time moves steadily on, yes, but music remains magnificently potent, no matter the era.“
— Joan Dempsey, author of This Is How It Begins, a novel
“A seamless conjunction of three intertwined stories revolving around the redeeming power of music. I love the way you jump time. It’s done very smoothly and coherently. I never lost track of what was happening and could easily go back or forth without missing a beat.
Richard Attree’s knack for writing realistic, charismatic characters, will put you right in the scene as their tribulations unfold.
The Rhythm of Time is a must read for those who enjoy unraveling the mysteries of what makes us human.“
— g.o. Idaguiven, author of The Cosmic Void Saga
“Part historical fiction, part present revelation, and on to future speculation, The Rhythm of Time is an engaging read, following three timelines and the connection between the characters and their music obsession across six centuries. The novel weaves back and forth over the ages, spinning the common thread that ties his characters together.
Richard Attree has done a great job with this novel, plaiting together the past, present and future with characters that you know or identify with, tangling positions they are born into, with the choices they make.“
— Randy Landenberger, author of the Dream Messiah series
“I was blown away by this novel. I thought it was original, thought-provoking, well-crafted and engaging from start to finish. I love how you’ve woven the three time zones into the seven acts of a man’s life, and I particularly enjoyed the theme of music itself.
I know nothing about music but in your hands, I felt the power and passion of great composition; that’s quite an achievement to get across on the page.“
— Andrea Montgomery, author of The Banana Road
“It’s a complex, ambitious novel full of imagination and passages that provoke thought. I found myself thinking a lot about its messages, some of them obvious, others less so. It kept me intrigued and interested throughout, the three stories working as compelling tales in themselves. I found, once I got a handle on the story, I was looking for clues and connections everywhere. Sometimes I thought I could see where things were heading, but you wrong-footed me most times.
It was a breath of fresh air to read something that was original, had real depth, and was compellingly written.
Really well done, I think The Rhythm of Time stands out as being something different. You’ve done an incredible job to weave all those threads together to fashion such an interesting and compelling novel.“
— Jack Montgomery, author of By the Time Dawn Breaks
“Richard Attree masterfully intertwines three time periods in his new novel, The Rhythm of Time. As an historical fiction fan, I was immediately intrigued be the story of the “English Mozart”. While I am not a fan of futuristic fiction, I was drawn into the story lines of all three centuries and was rooting for all of the characters by the end of the stories. I kept turning pages, eager to find out how they were connected and how it would end.
I appreciated Attree’s attention to detail and the care with which he built these three worlds. I also enjoyed the music which flowed through the whole novel.“
— Patricia Robertson, author
“I love the way you switch from one story to another, leaving us with a cliffhanger in the 18th century when turning to more modern times and leaving us eager to know what happened back then. And I LOVED the ending! I love the way you built up to it, and I love the way it left me guessing about what might have happened next. It also made it more of a tale for our times.“
— Linda Wainright, beta reader
“When I first started reading, I looked forward mostly to the future chapters because I was fascinated by the changes that had occurred a couple hundred years from now. Now I look forward to the next chapter whatever time period it’s in. It’s a really good book, and I can’t imagine that anyone (musician or not) will finish it and not have a better sense of the importance, purpose, and structure of music.”
— Michael Sirois, author of If a Butterfly
“The Rhythm of Time is a magnificent piece—at once historical fiction, epistolary memoir, speculative time-capsule, and feminist artistic testament. It is a quiet triumph of voice, structure, and imagination. Elizabeth’s journey, told across decades, is emotionally profound without ever being sentimental. Her final act—entrusting her art not to fame, but to time—is breathtaking. This story deserves wide readership. It is subtle, layered, and wise.“
— Feedback from the judges of the 2024 Hammond House International Literary Prize (an extract was one of the Judges’ Choices)
Richard Attree 