Tom Watson Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Tom Watson is a literary fiction novelist who is best known for his debut work of fiction “Metronome,” which he published in 2022.

The author went to the University of East Anglia, where he graduated with a master’s in creative writing and was also the recipient of the Giles Gordon Curtis Brown Prize.
Upon the publication of his debut novel, it would achieve critical success that it made the shortlist for the Bridport Prize.

Before writing his novel, he had been writing short fiction that made the shortlist for the Bristol Short Story Prize and was a Sean O Faolain Prize winner.

Tom currently makes his home in the USA where he lives with his wife and Mu, Neko Chan, and Drizzt their three cats. Outside of his writing, he is a systems analyst and computer programmer whose software is widely used across the globe.
Watson is a man of varied interests and he is known to love anything to do with physics, ancient European cultures, science fiction, geology, and world travel.
He usually interacts with his fans and readers through the newsletter on his website, where he provides updates on upcoming novels.

According to Tom Watson, he once knew an author who could perceive books visually and then render the plotlines in 2D.

Oftentimes, he used to begin telling them a synopsis of what he was working on or something he read and he would come out with oh yes, that looks like a square.

When he added a few twists or a detail, they would stop and said I think it looks more like a circle. Watson loved having such charts with his friend who was an expert at picking apart just about any complexity he faced.
As such, it is not surprising that the inspiration for “Metronome” is from a very similar approach.

When Tom Watson’s daughter was very young, they took a road trip to Skye from Glasgow where they were to spend a week.

A few miles from arriving at their destination, his wife who was a better driver was at the wheel where she started squinting.

Up ahead, the road snaked between the sea and the mountain, and in the distance up above, they could see a herd of sheep in single file approaching them.

As they slow down their vehicle and draw near to the herd, they disperse and wander away, except for a straggler, who picks up speed, charges at the van, and crosses the lanes.
The sheep hits their vehicle and bounds off happily, seemingly fine from the ordeal.
But an interesting thing is that the family’s stay is haunted by several haunting encounters. Herds of sheep often barricade their path while they are out on walks, and throughout the night they can hear sheep bleating.
In the morning they once opened their front door and found a sheep standing there as if waiting for them. It was at that point that he had the idea of writing a novel about the unexpected arrival of a sheep.

Tom Watson’s “Metronome,” is the story of Whitney and Aina, who are a couple that have been marooned in a supposed island for the better part of 12 years.

They had been banished to the island by their dystopian society for conceiving a child without first informing the authorities.

They have to take a pill every eight hours to counteract the effects of toxic bacteria on the island and this severely limits their movements.
They get their pills from a dispensing machine that hands out the pills according to the thumbprint of the individual.

They live in something of a Scottish farmhouse and make use of an ancient counting system from the Celts, the shipwrecks come with Nordic names and they live very near to permafrost, which indicates a northern location.
From all these hints, it is possible that they may be in a northern Scotland Orkney archipelago. It has been nearly ten years, which means they are about to finish their sentence.

But a year ago things had changed. The warden stopped answering his radio and they no longer have their supply drops. They have for the most part survived by scavenging the occasional shipwreck in addition to growing some crops.
They are in crisis when their sentence comes to an end and no one comes to take them out. But then a lone sheep appears and begins grazing on the meadows.

Whitney believes it is a test seeking to prove how repentant they are while Aina aspects they may not be on an island at all.