Borrowed Time

Joshua Mason is an everyday man cursed with immortality.

Joshua Mason has been alive for thousands of years. He doesn’t know how or why it happened, only that he can die like any man, but will always return.

When you live forever, everything you love will die, so he decided long ago to not become attached. That all changed when he met Doreen. With her, he found something more than the woman he loves, after thousands of years of wandering, he found his place in the world. Now she’s dying of old age. Distraught, Joshua promises to look after Charlie, Doreen’s grandson, who is thirty-six, but forever a child due to a terrible brain injury.

Keeping Charlie safe means making money to keep Charlie’s world—a crumbling motel in the middle of a barren desert—afloat. Mason makes this money by selling his life on the dark web to wealthy people who enjoy the ritual of murdering him.

And now, when Mason only wants to mourn the loss of his wife, he discovers he sold his life to some very dangerous people and that Charlie is not as innocent as he seems.

“Borrowed Time is so many things. Epic, thrilling, suspenseful, beautiful. There are horrors in this story that are truly monstrous, and I’m a sucker for a brutal, complicated villain. But it was the love story that got me. When I finished the last page, I actually had to take a moment to breathe.”
–Victoria Dougherty, Bestselling Author of The Bone Church and the Breath series.

“Longtime journalist John Nolte’s compelling and moving Borrowed Time is no mere first novel. It is the first fictional work to forcefully dramatize the terrifying world we live in today—what Nolte calls the All at Once—while showing us the way out through God and love. Read this extraordinary book now!”
–Roger Simon, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, prize-winning mystery novelist

“John Nolte’s Borrowed Time is a story-telling breath of fresh air. With a deft touch, Nolte tells a tale that is at once magical, and is yet rooted in a kind of Dickensian naturalism. This novel is a high-wire narrative that meditates on life and death and God’s eternal presence. The novel is also an unabashed love letter to America. An absorbing story of love and the role history plays in our lives, I read this book in one sitting and look forward to reading it again, out loud, to my grandchildren. This is, quite simply, a great American novel.”
–Robert Avrech, Emmy-winning Screenwriter Body Double, A Stranger Among Us

“John Nolte has written a fine page turner of a novel. Sure to be a fun summer read. A love story with a cinematic almost Capra-esque throwback to its feeling and passion, which at the same time is a smart thriller jumping along at a fun clip. I really enjoyed it.”
–Mike Binder, Comedian Writer and Director Upside of Anger, Reign Over Me , Keep Calm

“John Nolte has achieved something on which many Christian fiction writers fall short: he’s produced a riveting, fast-paced novel without sanitizing the characters or the gritty reality of our modern world and without preaching. Though this book cannot fairly be categorized as Christian fiction, it expresses Christian themes as surely as if it were, and more effectively. I marvel at Nolte’s creative imagination and his facility for storytelling. This is a fun but provocative read.”
–David Limbaugh, Author and Lawyer.

“I will read anything John Nolte writes. He’s sharp, he’s fearless, he’s hilarious. But Borrowed Time is something special. The idea at its center is ingenious, and seeing where he takes this concept is a thrill. I couldn’t put it down.”
–Alex Marlow, Editor-In-Chief Breitbart News, New York Times Bestselling Autho