CIRCLE (novel)

Six strangers with an unusually extreme form of déjà vu meet for a weekly support group. Each is locked in his/her own little loop of time, ranging from eight years, to a single, agonizing day. Meanwhile, a shady organisation tries to infiltrate the group while a brilliant young scientist and a nervous therapist partner to answer the big question - are these six delusional, or is something stranger going on?

‘The seventh time Clarke was murdered, the experience began to lose much of its novelty.  The same electric jolts of pain, the same sickening wetness spreading across his stomach.  He felt the now-familiar rasp, as the blade’s serrated edge grazed a rib on its way out.  Again, he heard his heart thumping violently in his chest.  But the shock factor was gone.  As Clarke crumpled to his knees on the metal fire escape, he felt something almost like relief.  Anticipating the blade was always far worse than the pain it left behind. He rested his head against the criss-cross metal, feeling its coolness as sticky blood oozed out between his fingers and through the tear in his hoodie.  He heard the clatter as his killer, probably no older than fifteen, darted down the steps and belted across the patch of scrubby grass that separated the Estate from the shopping precinct.  CCTV had been inoperative behind the phone shop for weeks; Clarke’s murderer would never be identified or caught.’