The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

For fans of The Ministry of Time and The Midnight Library, a sweeping, unforgettable novel following two remarkable women moving between postwar and Cold War-era America and the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.
 

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 following review is based on a complimentary ARC provided by Atria Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Winston Churchill wrote that history is written by the victors but in Hayley Gelfuso’s debut novel The Book of Lost Hours, it’s not about who writes history but who can access and manipulate it. A cavernous sprawling expanse filled with shelves of books, the Time Space is a place entirely removed from linear time as we know it, full of history and people’s memories stored as books. Referred to as Timekeepers, those that can access this place shape history to match their vision by removing select memories from this space, wiping them from existence. Trapped in this timeless space since 1938, Lisavet Levy tries to save these memories deemed dangerous by salvaging and hiding them within her book until an American timekeeper Ernest Duquesne begins to take notice in 1949. Meanwhile in 1965, mourning the death of her Uncle Ernest, Amelia Duquesne is approached by a mysterious CIA agent named Moira who presents her a Time Space watch and tasks her with finding a mysterious book of memories Ernest had been searching for. Blending elements of speculative fiction, time travel, historical fiction, and romance across time, The Book of Lost Hours is an impressively ambitious story based around memories, love, and nostalgic warmth. Despite a slow start, I thoroughly enjoyed this book’s brilliant story and consistently had no idea where it was going or how it would conclude its expansive narrative.

If the book’s blurb and the brief intro above sounds like a lot, I’ve done my job at conveying the scope of Gelfuso’s grand story. This book caught my eye with its compelling premise, being compared to a cross between The Ministry of Time and the Midnight Library which were both two of my favorite 2024 reads. Unlike many marketing strategies that simply namedrop popular books, this sales pitch is really quite accurate. This novel shares the world-jumping and whimsical, otherworldly book-filled space aspects of The Midnight Library while mirroring The Ministry of Time’s genre-bending time travel romance within an imaginative speculative fiction setup. Yet despite sharing similar aspects to these well-read novels, The Book of Lost Hours sets itself apart and feels completely different and fresh. Unhindered by most typical time traveling restrictions courtesy of its unique concept, this story features countless memories captured across various times and locations. Yet due to setting only going as current as 1965, it retains its historical fiction roots even when it’s set in the book’s “present day”.

This is one of those speculative fiction novels that are hard to talk about without giving away any major spoilers, but at its crux, the story is one of preserving history and an ill-fated romance doomed by both time and political circumstances. The less one knows about the story the better to experience the full effect of Gelfuso’s compelling plot. The story has a bit of a slow and disconnected start as the reader is initially introduced to Lisavet Levy in 1938, followed by Amelia Duquesne in 1965 and alternating back and forth. While these two are considered the main characters of the story which make sense to introduce them early, the tone of their two perspectives swing wildly at each perspective shift. One story has a whimsical and meandering feel while the other is tense, almost like a mystery thriller which can make for an unusual reading experience. Both are good tonal representations of the story yet to come, but the opening can be a bit jarring and hard to follow for some. I personally also didn’t find Amelia particularly interesting to read about until pretty far into the story and even then, felt like her character or perspective could’ve been more distinctive or featured more since you can tell Gelfuso intended for her to be the center of the story (she’s simply a rebellious and stubborn teenager).

However, once the story finds it footing, it’s a consistent page-turner. The novel does a consistently great job with foreshadowing future events via its clever split perspective and timeline presentation. Elements will be introduced in the past years, then the abrupt shift to the future shows what happened to them after. Or in the reverse direction for example, it’s revealed early on that Lisavet vanished from the Time Space at a certain year and it becomes a mystery of what happened to her in the present. Besides Lisavet’s unique timeless situation, there’s also storylines revolving around the mystery of Uncle Ernest’s mysterious covert career, Moira’s connection and assignment with Amelia, a young Russian agent believed to have murdered Ernest, as well as Nazi and KGB time agents for good measure. While there’s a lot of different ideas included and the story frequently jumps around in the past/historic present, part of the fun and excitement is trying to figure out how all these seemingly unrelated events and people are connected in Gelfuso’s master planned sequence of continuity, not to mention her breaking it in the book’s satisfying conclusion. Even though some of the plot twists can be seen coming if you’re intuitive, there’s usually subtle details or aspects to the twist that will likely still be a surprise.

While I found Amelia to be less interesting than Lisavet and many of the other supporting characters, that’s more of a compliment to how good the rest of the characters are. As the scope of the story grows and the complex timeline forms, the book adopts an ensemble cast type of presentation. As the cast of characters grows, so too do conflicting ideologies and theories about the Time Space and Lisavet’s quest which show the level of detail and thought that went into this book; while not particularly deep or the focus, there’s even light political references and commentary of the time. I loved the journey Lisavet’s character goes on over the course of the story and the way Gelfuso plots her shifting ideological changes, personal values, and outlook on life. Similarly, Ernest is also wonderfully written and is impossible not to root for despite already knowing what potentially happens to him as seen through Amelia’s perspective. The only weak spot that I noticed is the young Russian agent Anton Stepanov who largely suffers from simply being underutilized. Not sure if it’s a coincidence or not that both the young characters feel underdeveloped and their motives/feelings to be one-dimensional and typical, but I felt like both he and Amelia were missed opportunities to do more though that likely would’ve required the story to be extended considerably. As currently presented, more time and dramatic moments are wisely spent with Lisavet and Ernest who carry the story and are likely more relatable to the target readership demographics this novel is intended for vs its YA characters.

Regardless of minor nitpicks here and there, overall I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by The Book of Lost Hours and how much narrative content it was able to cover over the course of its four hundred page count. While I loved Gelfuso’s ambitious ideas and concepts, I also noticed how appealing this novel will likely be once it is published. Its speculative fiction premise is genius but it wisely avoids being overly technical or convoluted that would turn off traditional historical fiction or women/literary fiction readers. Its time travel romance is also carefully pitched where it should satisfy lovers of the trope without being overly mushy for speculative fiction fans and keeping all the adult content suggested behind closed doors to avoid cheapening the reading experience. Well-crafted, polished, with a nice dose of whimsy plus books, The Book of Lost Hours is a great all-arounder that I can comfortably recommend to almost anyone for a good time!