"How to stop time" by Matt Haig

A audio book.

The protagonist is over 400 years old - after puberty he's aged 10-15 times slower than the rest of us - "Nothing's new. Everything's an echo". His mother died while being tested to see if she was a witch (his fault). After a while the growing apparent age difference between him and Rose (his first love) caused trouble. Their daughter, Marion, was a child prodigy, which didn't help. He had to go. He's been seeking her for centuries - she may be like him.

He played the lute at Shakespeare's Globe. He talked to Scott Fitzgerald in Paris.

He belongs to the Albatross Society, whose leader is Heinrich - the members are people like him who keep their existance secret. They arrange new identities, and seek out Albas. The protagonist thinks they're the best way to find Marion. Rule number one is not to fall in love. They kill "mayflies" (the rest of us) who may spill the beans. They'd kill their own kind too, even if they thought they were helping humanity by revealing themselves - "Scientists are the new witch hunters".

He's just started a job as a history teacher in inner London - "Happiness is finding the lie that suits you best". He manages to turn a lad away from his bad friends towards a dream of doing a History degree. He falls in love with a fellow teacher, Camille, and tells her everything, how he gets "lost in the moment" when playing music.

He meets an Alba in an old people's home who tells him that Marion's around. He's given a mission by Heinrich to give an old mate of his an ultimatum - disappear from public view or face the consequences. The old friend seems to have found a way to life and love. Marion, manipulated by Heinrich, tries to kill the protagonist. She ends up killing Heinrich. The protagonist has a child with Camille. He's learning to live for the moment free of Heinrich's rules.

Other reviews

• Hermione Eyre
• Kirkus Review
• Clare Clark (The resulting novel is part love story and part thriller, though not quite enough of either. ... Shakespeare is a particularly clumsy creation, a man who quotes himself in conversation. ... In the end, though, it is Tom himself who most bogs down the narrative. More than once he apologizes for his “heaviness,” and with good reason. Weary of life, still grieving his dead wife some four centuries after her death (“I need ‘closure,’ as people say these days”), he makes for a frustratingly passive protagonist.)