Margo has left home in Cork, and is on a train heading to boarding school in Dublin. Or so she thought.
She finds herself in a carriage with a stranger, who can instantly see she looks lost. She’s wearing summer clothes for a start, when it’s freezing outside. The ticket she holds means nothing to him, and when a weird looking train guard approaches them, the stranger jumps into action.
He is a salesman in this world. A world called New Davia. His job allows him to use the trains to travel within worlds. Worlds that don’t include Margo’s. So where did she come from? He bribes the guard, taking responsibility for this lost girl.
Margo is grateful, but frightened. Still, she’s intrigued by this salesman who looks only a year or two older, with a crescent moon scar down his face. She shudders when he tells her it did hurt, and the tattooist did it with malice. This salesman is called Moon – because of this very scar.
Off the train, and meeting more strangers, Margo is more and more confused. When she sees Police-like authorities, she tries to flee Moon and his friends, but changes her mind when she witnesses their brutality on another.
She’s soon swept up in a world made of multiple worlds, attached by train lines like no other. These worlds have different time zones and levels. Margo is used to a 24 hour day, but some of the places in Moon’s worlds have much less, down to even less than 5 hr days. This time change from one world to another messes with Margo’s mind and body, resulting in Skipshock. The more you travel between worlds, the more Skipshock will affect you. Until it finally kills you.
Worried about her mother who will be frantic at her disappearance from her world, she’s grateful for Moon’s help to get home again. But can she trust him? On her way, she hears about the inequalities of Moon’s world. Especially against his people. Some places in New Devia have much more than others, and the ruling authorities are squeezing more and more out of poorer places, for their own use.
Learning there is an opposing force to this power, greed and treachery doesn’t surprise Margo, but it does when these revolutionaries tell her that she is the key to their success. She can help them fight back, and get back what once was theirs. Their homes, their way of life and in Moon’s case – his very life.
Rich and imaginative worldbuilding,
a simmering romance,
a villain to despise
and a twist I never saw coming.
Skipshock is a scintillating read!
This novel’s world is original, intriguing to get your head around (and I did wrangle with it in the beginning), but well worth it, as we meet main characters Margo and Moon and we learn their back stories.
Margo grows up over the month or so she is in this parallel world to ours, as the time zones shorten and lengthen and her body changes with it. There are parallels to our own world with terrible prejudice against Moon’s people, and the growing gap between rich and powerful (with plenty of time), and the struggling poor (with little time in their days.)
Clever – and I can’t wait for the next book after a truly shocking ending!
Author – Caroline O’Donoghue
Age – 15+
Find another great read by this author here
Publisher – Walker Books
Set – New Davia, a dystopian, interconnected world of varying time-zones.
Viewpoint – Two persectives / 1st person & 3rd
Violence – Yes
Sex – Yes / Alluded to
Real Life – No
Fantasy – Yes – Time Travel Trains
Blend – Dystopian / Revolution / Romance
(2025, Fantasy, Romance, Courage, War, Action, Betrayal, Grief, Time travel, Trains, Parallel Worlds, Danger, Gunfire, Loss, Watch, Prejudice,