This alternative history science fiction thriller is set on the English east coast blending a lost World War II U-boat with time travel. It is rich in historical detail and builds pace and intrigue steadily.
There aren’t many novels out there featuring submarines and lead female characters. Dive Beyond Eternity fills that gap.
Historian Zara Rose is hired to investigate the discovery of an undamaged German U-boat in the North Sea. There she discovers Die Fledermaus, a Nazi superweapon powered by an unstable black matter, capable of transporting its passengers through time.
After accidentally triggering the device, Zara travels to the past where she meets the mysterious Der Meister, a physicist who created the weapon. When a colleague vanishes with the device, Zara and her fellow historian Stefan Krause help a shadowy agency apprehend the thief.
In the wrong hand’s the device could rewrite history or kill countless millions. Can Zara find Die Fledermaus before Der Meister’s visions of a renewed Third Reich can be brought to its terrible fruition?
Published by small press, Northdox Press, Dive Beyond Eternity is set in Yorkshire locations close to my heart. In fairness, it was what drew my attention to the novel. Being familiar to the towns and cities also created a higher bar for the author to reach. Fortunately, the author does not waste effort or pace in capturing too much of the North of England. Salt puts the isolating geography to good use in building conflict for our characters.
We follow Zara, a naval historian, with help from Stefan their adventures stretch from Yorkshire’s Humber Estuary to London and Europe.
Time travel is enough to give anyone the wibbly-wobblys if not handled well. Rest assured, this is not a time-traveling submarine. The mystery of people displaced across time is a puzzle Zara is forced to deal with. Nazis and world dominating plans and ex-lovers only out to preserve their own objectives just insist on making her life difficult.
We join Zara as she inspects a well-preserved U-boat wreck, the U-4713/A. It is at this point we are led from our reality. The U-4713 was not commissioned for operation in the Kriegsmarine. In Dive Beyond Eternity, the U-boat U-4713/A is fitted with a unique device which appears to have failed, fatally, on original manoeuvres.
Zara is a strong-willed character, her initial ambition to find the answers of the sunken U-boat rapidly becomes one of self-preservation, as the ambitions of professionals she has worked prove to be dangerous for her and the world.
The science and world building developed about the Die Fledermaus’s black matter device doesn’t overpower the story or confuse the reader. The black matter takes its toll on those in contact with it. This adds to the threats Zara has to face as she unpicks the puzzle around the history of the U-boat. Stefan offers a sounding board, and before long the pair are sucked into government departments also attempting to put a stop to Der Meister.
Sometime a book surprises you. Dive Beyond Eternity builds tension and pace gradually throughout the book. It’s easy to think that this makes it ‘slow’ but the multitude of threads combine to create conflict for Zara. It’s as deceptive as the U-boat. The arc allows you to absorb the characters and the world they live in, and enjoy unraveling the puzzling U-boat along with the Zara.
Author Website: https://saltandnovels.wordpress.com/
Publisher : https://www.northodox.co.uk/
Paperback : 310 pages
First published July 20, 2023
ISBN-13 : 978-1915179210
Review by Shellie Horst.