“Upstairs, Lisavet,” he said, reaching into his coat for the pocket watch. The old familiar brass was slick in his palm. His fingers fumbled over the crown until it clicked into place, and he flung open the door. What had once been their cozy, two-room apartment was instead a silent cavern of shadows. “I want you to wait in there. Stay right there by this door.”
Those are some lines from the first chapter of Hayley Gelfuso’s fantasy novel The Book of Lost Hours. The story begins in 1938 in Germany. The cavern in which Lisavet’s Jewish father hides her is the Time Space, a different dimension where shelves of books hold the memories of all who have died. Lisavet’s father never returns for her, so she spends decades experiencing life through those memories.
A limited number of people have the special watches that allow them access to the time space. Twenty years into her confinement, she notices timekeepers burning books in an effort to erase or change history. She makes it her mission to stomp out the fires and preserve as much as she can in her own separate book.
It’s while she’s preserving a memory that she meets and falls in love with Ernest, a timekeeper from the real world who is on a secret mission to do the same. But back out in the real world, one CIA department’s sole mission is to erase memories and change history. They want to find and destroy Lisavet’s book.
It’s a tempting concept to be able to erase memories that cause pain, but also a little scary to think of a government rewriting history.
If you’re intrigued by the idea of all our collective memories stored in another dimension and concerned about those who would like to rewrite history, then you must read The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso.
