The Watermark by Sam Mills review – a time-travelling romp

Two lovers are trapped in a series of books, tumbling through different eras and genres, in this superb metafictional adventure

Sam Mills’s virtuosic new novel is – when defined in the strictest terms – a romp. By that I mean it’s an adventure story that doesn’t ask you to take it all that seriously. The Count of Monte Cristo is the definitive romp: a tale of repeated imprisonment and escape, of thwarted romance, of daring disguises and, in the end, of triumphant human grit and ingenuity. The Watermark has all that, but with added metatextuality and time travel. If you love Doctor Who, you will love this book. It whirls you off on a similarly breathless Technicolor tumble through different eras and genres. But where the Doctor has the Tardis, the two main characters of The Watermark – journalist Jaime and painter Rachel – have cups of magical tea.

The tea is administered to them by an obviously rompish baddie, Augustus Fate. Fate is a bestselling but extremely bitter author, living in rural Wales, who has realised after seven Booker prize shortlistings that his novels lack convincing characterisation and genuine emotion. His solution is to lure two real people to his remote house, and then, by means of the magical tea, to sedate, brainwash and insert them into his stalled work in progress, Thomas Turridge. This is a poor Victorian pastiche set in 1860s Oxford. Jaime will become the titular Thomas; Rachel will keep her real name. Neither of them will remember anything of who they are or what’s happened to them before. Instead, Fate can put them through terrible trials, and note down what they say and do as they react. A prize-winning literary masterpiece is almost bound to ensue, if he can only keep the police at bay and his two bedbound prisoners unconscious.

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