Book Review
The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso
Historical Fiction | Fantasy | Time Travel | Science Fiction | Romance
“You won’t lose me,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “We’re linked, you and me. No matter where we end up, be it a country, an era, or an alternative version of the past, we’ll always find each other.”
Enter the time space, a soaring library filled with all the memories of those who have passed. For hundreds of years, the library has been closely guarded by Timekeepers—those who decide which memories to preserve or destroy — but as it becomes a political weapon for the governments of the world, one young girl sets about trying to salvage the past, creating her own book of lost memories.
This historical fantasy is a dual-timeline novel following eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy in WWII (who is trapped in the time-space library) and Amelia Duquesne, a fifteen-year-old grieving the death of her uncle, in Cold War era USA. With the additional perspective of time-space operative, Moira, this book has a strong cast of resilient and compelling female protagonists.
The Book of Lost Hours is a fascinating theory for a story. The premise was captivating — a library outside of time that holds all the world’s memories. Compared to books like The Ministry of Time and The Midnight Library, it had a lot to live up to — and I think it held its own very well.
Still, I did feel that there were certain elements that could have been fleshed out further. I held lingering questions about the time-space library, as well as the government organizations trying to control it. But while there was some confusion regarding these details, the story was intriguing enough for me to set those aside and simply go along with it.
The writing was lovely and had a very poetic feel to it, tackling topics like legacy, preserving history, and memories of those gone before. And while the pacing was a little slower to start, the second half of the book picked up significantly. There was a lot of plot crammed into the four hundred pages of this book, and despite the main plot points being quite obvious from early on, there were also a lot of really beautiful, unexpected elements to the story as well.
Lisavet and Ernest were fantastic characters that I absolutely fell in love with from the start. This WWII plotline definitely felt like the stronger timeline, and I struggled to connect as deeply with our other main character, Amelia. However, I appreciated the connections between all of our characters and the influence of the time space library on them all. The ending of this novel was exactly what I needed, but still left me thinking — and I love it when a book does that.
For readers looking for a genre-blending story featuring time travel, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, historical fiction, mystery, and speculative fiction (phew!), this was a fresh, well-crafted debut — and I can’t wait to see what stories Gelfuso spins for us next.
Recommended for:
Readers who love genre-blending books involving romance, time travel, and speculative fiction
This post contains affiliate links; as an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Advance copy of the book provided courtesy of the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada. All opinions expressed are my own.
About the book:
(From the publisher): Enter the time space, a soaring library filled with books containing the memories of those have passed and accessed only by specially made watches once passed from father to son—but mostly now in government hands. This is where eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in 1938, waiting for her watchmaker father to return for her. When he doesn’t, she grows up among the books and specters, able to see the world only by sifting through the memories of those who came before her. As she realizes that government agents are entering the time space to destroy books and maintain their preferred version of history, she sets about saving these scraps in her own volume of memories. Until the appearance of an American spy named Ernest Duquesne in 1949 offers her a glimpse of the world she left behind, setting her on a course to change history and possibly the time space itself.
In 1965, sixteen-year-old Amelia Duquesne is mourning the disappearance of her uncle Ernest when an enigmatic CIA agent approaches her to enlist her help in tracking down a book of memories her uncle had once sought. But when Amelia visits the time space for the first time, she realizes that the past—and the truth—might not be as linear as she’d like to believe.
The Book of Lost Hours explores time, memory, and what we sacrifice to protect those we love.