Reading Equator is like immersing yourself in a performance of a butterfly dance while being mesmerised by history. The characters, Colonel David, Keep Left, Ellie-Isabela, the Mendozas and the Glass-Darlingtons, begin their traversing of time and place in 1947 Spain, but the story soon exquisitely deviates into 2009 London, 1930s India and passages on memory, love, luck, good and evil.

Creating a contemporary magic realism, Ashton establishes a unique voice, and while the reader does have to trust the narrator about the story (as it doesn’t become clear for quite some 100 pages and after that diverts regularly), Ashton’s language is inventive and funny and very engaging. Diasporas and deities. Oil and opium. Africa. London. India. The shifting time and geography are relentless, but fascinating.

The novel is long and does feel as though it could have done with a further edit, but it is so distinctly unique and fresh that it is well worth the effort. Ding-dong and how’s the time.