The Broken Lines series
The Broken Lines series follows Michael Weir, a young man from the late 1960s who is thrust back in time to the battlefields of the Great War. Armed with knowledge of what is to come, he discovers that he is able to make small changes to history. However, every change that Michael makes causes rippling effects in the future that are both drastic and often tragic for those involved.
Across three novels, Michael’s attempts to change the fate of members of his own family cause him to interact with other soldiers and their families, inadvertently altering the course of their lives and history.
The series explores courage, comradeship, the randomness of war, and the devastating cost of altering time itself.
*These conceptual covers are AI-generated. The manuscripts, however, are not.
Author’s Note
The novels in the Broken Lines series were inspired by the wartime experiences of members of my own family and, like the non-fiction account of the Prentice brothers’ movements during WW1, draws upon extensive historical research carried out over many years, including military records, war diaries, contemporary accounts and family documents. While modern research tools, including AI-assisted searches, were occasionally used to help locate background information, the story, characters and manuscript are entirely my own work.
Iain McAndrew
The Broken Lines series
The Broken Lines series
The Broken Lines series
Until the Day Break
In the summer of 1966, eighteen‑year‑old Michael Weir travels to the battlefields of northern France to pay his respects at the grave of a great‑uncle he never knew: Tom Prentice, a young Gordon Highlander, killed during a failed trench raid in June 1916.
But when a lightning strike tears through the cemetery, Michael is hurled back in time into the chaos of the Great War. Waking in a Casualty Clearing Station – injured, disoriented, and suffering memory loss – he discovers he has been found by Tom himself.
Assuming a false identity, Michael joins Tom’s platoon and experiences the exhausting routine of wartime life: drills, fatigues, route marches, trench duty, and the constant fear. As his memory returns, he realises Tom’s death is only weeks away.
Determined to change the past, Michael begins altering small events: saving men who should have died and quietly influencing the course of events around him. But every life he saves threatens to alter far more than he intended.
Until the Day Break is a gripping story of courage, friendship, and one young man's desperate attempt to change a fate that history has already written.
Released on Remembrance Day - 11 November 2026.
The Last Leave
Michael Weir has returned from 1916 carrying the unbearable knowledge that, although he saved lives, he has changed the past in ways he never intended. Unable to accept the altered world around him, he searches for a way to return, determined to undo the damage his actions have caused. But the storm that carried him into the past has long since passed.
Back in Scotland, lacking direction and purpose, Michael is introduced to David Crichton, a man whose life should have ended in the Great War. Instead, because of Michael’s actions, he survived. David asks him to travel to Belgium on his behalf, to honour a fallen comrade whose name is carved into the Memorial Wall at Tyne Cot Cemetery.
And when Michael touches that name, the pathway to the past opens up once more.
Thrown back into the mud and terror of the Western Front in 1917, Michael finds himself living the remnants of another soldier’s life, carrying memories that are not his own and facing horrors he thought he had escaped. As he searches for the reason he has been sent back again, he discovers that fate is not finished with him – or with the young man whose life he now inhabits.
The Last Leave continues the Broken Lines series with a powerful examination of the human cost of war. Set against the backdrop of Passchendaele and the Scottish home front, it explores the frailty of individuals, the randomness of fate, the harsh realities of military bureaucracy, and the profound consequences that ripple through generations long after the guns fall silent.
The Last Leave is currently under development, with an anticipated publication date of August 2027.
The Shadows Flee Away
The third and perhaps final instalment of the Broken Lines series is still in its early stages. At present, it seems likely that Michael's journey will lead him to the 100 Days Offensive of 1918, the final campaign of the Great War.
Beyond that, I am reluctant to say too much. Not only would it risk spoiling the story, but experience has shown that Michael's journey often takes unexpected turns as the writing unfolds.
An estimated publication date will be announced once the manuscript is further advanced.
