“Only Time Will Tell” by Jeffrey Archer – Fate and Heritage

Only Time Will Tell is the first part of the Clifton Chronicles written by Jeffrey Archer, author of bestsellers Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth. In it, the curious life of Harry Clifton is presented to us, starting with his life as a lowly dock worker in 1920s Britain.

Never having known his father, Harry has little hope for a glorious future, but all of that changes when he mysteriously receives a scholarship to a boys’ school.

As Harry grows, he begins to question the death of his father more and more, until he discovers that he may very well be part of a wealthy family. However, the twentieth century still has a Second World War coming up, and with Hitler staring at Britain from the horizon, Harry is forced to choose between enrolling in the navy and fighting evil, or pursue a noble life at Oxford.

As far as beginnings to epic family sagas go, this is definitely a great start. Both of the families that will be followed through a century have a lot of personality and colorful characters, and it doesn’t hurt that they are on the opposite ends of the social class spectrum.

Clifton really is his family’s only hope at going from rags to riches, having the voice of an angel, which is actually what nets him the scholarship in the first place.

Though the book focused a bit too much on Harry for my liking (I would have liked to learn and see more of the families), the other characters still got their time in the spotlight and it feels like their stories will be focused on in the future.

All in all, the writing in this book is solid, fluent, descriptive and quite developed, the story moves at a relatively brisk pace (though it does slow down at times), and the events happening to the characters actually make you emotionally involved in it.

Though this isn’t my favorite genre I found it a bit hard to put the book down, so those of you who do enjoy this type of literature will have a real blast.

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Jeffrey Archer Personal site Jeffrey Archer is not only the author of the Clifton Chronicles and a number of other novels, short stories and even autobiographical prison diaries, but he is also an active politician and even officially titled the Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare.