Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Release date: 25 September 2025
Back cover blurb: If you knew you had fifty-nine minutes until everything and everyone you love would be lost forever, what would you do with that time? It's an ordinary evening. People are coming home from work, cooking dinner for their children, cuddling on sofas with their lovers. And then the message arrives, shattering everyone's worlds: Missiles are set to destroy England in fifty-nine minutes. Everyone should seek immediate shelter. 59 minutes follows the journey of three women trying to make it home to and protect their families. The journeys should be simple, but with a lost schoolchild seeking help, a teenage daughter suddenly going missing, and dangerous criminals on the prowl, there is peril at every corner.
This book is absolutely terrifying-in the best possible way.
What would you do if you knew you only had 59 minutes left to live?
It's a horrifying prospect and yet it the question that our characters are faced with when an emergency mobile alert is sent out across the UK about an incoming Nuclear missile set to hit London and the South of England.
In less than an hour.
59 minutes to be precise.
Carrie gets the alert on her way home from work.
On Dartmoor, Frankie and her boyfriend Otis have just checked in for their mini break when they get the alert.
None of them know what to do.
The alert is advising them to remain indoors or seek immediate shelter, but Carrie needs to get home to her family, and Frankie and Otis don't nearly have enough food to survive, even if they do have shelter.
Carrie's journey home across London should be a simple one, but as public transport is shut down, and normal life ceases to exist, she is forced to make decisions that no one should have to make as she is faced with a new kind of challenge.
Desperation.
It seems as if all traces of humanity have disappeared as everyone frantically battles to save themselves.
No matter the cost.
But what will they do if they can survive the attack? Frankie is determined that they can, so she and Otis venture to the local town to get supplies, and face the same battles as Carrie, just in a very different setting.
59 Minutes is a gripping thriller, with a twist that I certainly didn't see coming, and absolutely enhanced the novel for me. I don't want to say too much more as I don't want to give anything away. But this is a definite must read. Even if it might give you nightmares..
59 Minutes is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.
Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.