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Which Adam Eccles book should you read first?

Ten novels and they don't all live in the same neighbourhood. Time-travel romance. Techno-thriller. Irish literary supernatural. AI romcom. Retro gaming. Occult dinner-party. Divorced-dad comedy.

Pick whichever sounds most like the mood you're in. The order doesn't matter.

Cold Heart October by Adam Eccles

If you want a rock-and-roll epic with one carefully threaded supernatural element.

Cold Heart October

Literary Fiction · Irish · Music Drama

In 1994, a nineteen-year-old Mick Grady stepped onto a Dublin stage and did something no one could explain. Thirty years later, retreated to a tiny west of Ireland village and refusing to sing, he's filmed at his fiftieth birthday party and the clip goes viral overnight. A YouTuber who tracks down the unexplained gets on the next flight to Clare. For fans of Daisy Jones & The Six and High Fidelity.

Explore the world
Need a Little Time by Adam Eccles

If you want a time-travel love story that takes its science seriously and its heartbreak more seriously.

Need a Little Time

Time Travel · Romance · 4.6 stars, 2,100+ ratings

When Jamie Newgent's life implodes - his wife cheats, his business crumbles - he retreats to a gloomy bachelor pad on the fourth floor of a converted office block. What he finds there is a spiral staircase that shouldn't exist. And upstairs, a woman called Anna who changes everything.

Explore the series
22:22:22 Frequency Shift by Adam Eccles

If you want a techno-thriller where the hero is a night-shift IT bloke who hates daylight.

22:22:22 Frequency Shift

Techno-thriller · Series, Book 1 of 6 · Audiobook

Toby Steele is a night-shift tech support guy - quiet, overlooked, coasting beneath the radar. Until the night of 22 February 2022. At exactly 22:22:22, something activates. Something that was never meant to be triggered again. Suddenly Toby is changed. Faster, stronger, sharper. And tangled up with a centenarian codebreaker, a missing granddaughter, and a shadowy government agency that wants the code that changed him.

Enter the series
System Restored by Adam Eccles

If you grew up with a CRT and a controller, and you've ever wished you could go back to before everything got complicated.

System Restored

Retro Gaming · Time Travel · 4.6 stars, 1,000+ ratings

Derek Cooper just turned forty, and life hit "Game Over." Dead-end job, lovelorn, hiding from adulthood behind mountains of vintage consoles. Then he finds Time Portal - a mythical arcade cabinet whispered about in retro forums, long thought destroyed. But this machine doesn't just play games. It plays with time.

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Significant Other Machine by Adam Eccles

If you want a romcom for people who build chatbots instead of going on dates.

Significant Other Machine

Romantic Comedy · AI Fiction · Contemporary

Love is messy. Algorithms are not. Sam Oldfield prefers systems that behave predictably - computers do, people don't. Then her mother, fuelled by martinis and good intentions, buys her a Wi-Fi-enabled sex toy for her birthday. Naturally, Sam hacks it. What she ends up building is something unexpectedly compelling.

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The Soul Bank by Adam Eccles

If you want a dinner-party romcom that quietly becomes something stranger and much older without changing voice.

The Soul Bank

Contemporary · Supernatural · Drama

Andy Clarke has stayed in a hundred business hotels. He doesn't expect anything from a one-night stopover near an industrial estate in the Home Counties. He especially doesn't expect what happens afterwards. Vivid, intimate dreams of a woman he's never met. A life that feels more real than his actual one. The hotel did something to him.

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Who Needs Love, Anyway? by Adam Eccles

If you want a divorced-dad romcom that's funny on every page.

Who Needs Love, Anyway?

Romantic Comedy · Single Parents · 4.4 stars

Danny Watts has two ex-wives, two kids, and roughly zero romantic prospects. It's not for lack of trying. He's surrounded by women - at work, at school pickup, everywhere - and every single one of them thinks he's a lovely bloke. A great friend. Basically, a golden retriever in a dad's body. Then a woman calls needing help.

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The Twin Flame Game by Adam Eccles

If you want a romcom with bite.

The Twin Flame Game

Romantic Comedy · Anti-romance · 4.5 stars

Keith Myatt has everything: money, hotels, and a different woman in every city. What he doesn't have is anywhere he'd call home, anyone he'd call his, or a single reason to stop moving. Then a date in a London hotel bar tells him he's not her twin flame - one soul split in two, destined to find its other half - and somehow, this ridiculous idea gets under his skin.

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Time, for a Change by Adam Eccles

If you want to see where it all started.

Time, for a Change

The First Novel · Romantic Comedy · Speculative

Terry Ward has spent a decade in the same IT job, sitting through the same pointless conference calls, watching the same slug-like middle managers strut past his desk. He's not bitter. He's just very, very tired. When the bank forces his hand, he drives out to his late father's remote Irish workshop to clear the place out. What he finds is a wooden box, still humming, with his father's handwriting on the lid.

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Still not sure?

If you're genuinely stuck, start with Need a Little Time. It has the most ratings, the broadest appeal, and it's the book that's converted the most new readers. If you want more time travel, System Restored is the next strongest standalone. If you'd rather skip the speculative furniture, Who Needs Love, Anyway? is the one to pick up.

Every book is on Kindle Unlimited. Read them in any order.

Coming next

Two more books in development. Here's what's on the horizon.

Remember Me Tomorrow

Coming Soon

Remember Me Tomorrow

A man wakes in someone else's body with no memory. He's certain he's a time-travelling agent on a classified mission. If only he could remember what the mission was.

SIMBORN: Eidolon

In Development

SIMBORN

A generation ship. A post-human species. A three-hundred-year journey to a new world. Science fiction that takes the long view.

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