A Worthing Time Traveller's Strife: adventure story published by Sussex author

"One day, I heard two elderly ladies speaking in a cinema queue in Worthing," Andrew explains. "There was an old sixties song playing over the cinema's PA system and one lady turned to the other and said 'oh, crikey, this song really takes me back".

"How many time have I heard someone say that?" Andrew, the author of three previous novels, thought. "It started me thinking that we probably all have songs that send us back to times in our past, whether those time are good or bad, happy or sad."

A germ of an idea was sown in the writer's mind.

"Wouldn't it be an interesting basis for a story if someone discovered that they were really, quite literally, sent back to the time in their life they associated with a song when they heard it?" Andrew thought.

The result is "Man Out Of Time" (the title itself, suggested by one of the author's own favourite songs by Elvis Costello), where middle-aged "Eric" is the man who finds himself travelling through time whenever he hears a meaningful song from his past.

Andrew explains: "When the story starts, Eric is in a bad place; his wife has left him and he's lost his job. Depressed, he seeks refuge in the bottom of a whisky bottle. Then his best friend invites him to a show at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing, where they witness a "pyschic illusionist" called Aloysius Riviera, who claims to be able to send people back to the time they associate with any piece of music. Cynical and drunk, Eric publicly ridicules the man's act, which proves to be a costly mistake. He soon discovers that Riviera is no fraud. The following morning, Eric hears a song that sends him back to the eighties."

Andrew's unfortunate hero finds that this is just the start of his problems.

"Eric finds to his utter horror, that actions he takes whilst undertaking this 'trip' through time have a profound effect on his present-day life. Suddenly, back in the present day, he's married to another woman and his children don't exist. Alarmed, he tries to go back to undo the damage. However, changing things back proves more difficult than he imagines. The more he meddles in the past, the more complicated the situation becomes. Before he knows it, Eric's life is spiralling dangerously out of control."

"I wanted to explore what someone might do if they suddenly found they were really able to go back in time. What would they be tempted to change about things in their past and if they could indeed change things, what impact would this really have? Would it have the favourable outcome we desired or would it throw up some other, completely unforeseen consequences?"

Man Out of Time is now available from Amazon in kindle and paperback formats.