The Book of Lost Hours

The Book of Lost Hours (2025) is a speculative fiction novel by Hayley Gelfuso. It explores a world where a magical archive known as the time space exists; this archive stores people’s memories as books, allowing humans to visit, alter, and destroy them using pocket watches. The story takes place in two timelines, one at the start of World War II and the other during the Cold War. The first follows Lisavet Levy, whose father hides her in the archive when Nazis destroy his clock shop. Within the time space, she discovers the world that her father and clockmakers for centuries before him sought to protect. Then, in 1965, Amelia Duquesne is thrust into the Cold War fight with Russia in the time space. As Lisavet spends years fighting to protect the memories that Nazis and other government agencies seek to destroy, Amelia becomes embroiled in a decades-long mystery involving her uncle, his coworker, Moira, and their ruthless boss, Jack. Through the protagonists’ intertwined journeys, the novel explores themes of The Value of Human Connection, How Power Shapes the Historical Record, The Importance of Accepting Grief and Loss, and The Destructive Nature of War.

This guide uses the Kindle edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of bullying, racism, religious discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual violence, rape, child death, death by suicide, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, and death.

Plot Summary

In Germany in 1938, 11-year-old Lisavet learns that her father creates magical watches that allow people to enter the time space, a physical archive that holds human memories. When Nazis destroy his shop to steal his watches, Lisavet is thrown into the time space. She spends several years there with Azrael, the first timekeeper (someone who decides which memories to preserve), who shows her how to navigate memories. When she sees Nazis destroying memories, she begins preserving them in a book.

In 1965, 15-year-old Amelia Duquesne attends the funeral of her uncle and guardian, Ernest, in Boston. There, she is approached by Moira Donnelly, a CIA agent. Ernest was a timekeeper working with the US government, and he left his watch to Amelia. Moira implores Amelia to help the CIA find both the Russian agent who killed Ernest and a book of stolen memories.

With Moira’s guidance, Amelia enters the time space for the first time. She meets a young man who helps her, though she does not fully trust him. Meanwhile, Moira is approached by her boss, Jack Dillinger, the CIA director. He warns her of the necessity of finding Ernest’s killer and gives her a list of suspects. When Amelia returns from the time space and is given the folder of KGB agents, she realizes that the man who helped her is Anton Stepanov, the top suspect, whose father was killed by the CIA.

After six years in the time space, Lisavet meets a young timekeeper, Ernest. Over the next couple of years, they run into each other occasionally, with Ernest leaving her a cover with a blue flower for her book of memories. In secret, however, Ernest works for Jack, who is head of the Temporal Reconnaissance Program (TRP) and thus tasked with US espionage in the time space. Jack insists that Ernest needs to question Lisavet and steal her book, but Ernest is hesitant. He and Lisavet start spending every day together, traveling through memories and falling in love. One day, Ernest finds Lisavet after a close brush with a Russian timekeeper. This leads to sex, the two traveling through memories during their intimacy.

Back in 1965, Amelia and Moira visit James Gravel, an independent timekeeper who was friends with Ernest. Moira explains that James is part of a rebellion that is trying to stop government intervention in time. When Amelia and James are alone, he warns her not to trust Moira; she was the last one to see Ernest alive. He also tells her to look for timekeepers with blue flowers, as they are part of the rebellion. James then realizes that Moira is listening and recording their conversation. When he tries to stop her, she threatens to shoot him and then leaves. In the car, Moira is angry that Jack sent them to James, putting Amelia in danger. She pulls over and tells Amelia that Jack cannot know that she visited Ernest the night Ernest died. 

In the earlier timeline, Ernest lies to Jack, telling him that Lisavet died. However, Jack doesn’t believe this. One night, he confronts Ernest with all the information he has on Lisavet. In particular, he is interested in Ernest’s belief that Lisavet has become untethered from the outside world, her physical body entering the dimension of time. He tells Ernest to bring Lisavet in; otherwise, Jack will do so forcibly.

Panicked, Ernest returns to the time space. He begs Lisavet to run away with him by reentering the real world. She agrees. However, when Ernest falls asleep, Lisavet uses the abilities she has developed to look at his memories: All his happy moments include his family and friends. Lisavet realizes that he would be giving up too much to flee with her. She extracts his memories of her, placing them into her book and making him forget that she exists.

In the later timeline, Amelia returns to the time space at Jack’s insistence. She finds Anton, who pulls her into a memory when she tries to attack him. She realizes that he carries one of Ernest’s handkerchiefs and has a blue flower on his shirt, indicating that he is part of the rebellion. When Amelia returns to the real world, she confronts Jack and Moira, but they refuse to answer her questions, so she flees to James’s house to get answers.

Back in Lisavet’s timeline, Lisavet realizes that she is pregnant with Ernest’s child. Having developed the ability to intervene in memories, she enters one where nurses help her through a dangerous birth. However, she struggles to produce milk and soon realizes that she cannot raise her daughter in the time space. She goes to a memory belonging to Ernest’s sister, Elaina, who lost her own child. Lisavet places her daughter with Elaina and then helps her choose a name: Amelia.

Over the next several years, Lisavet tracks Elaina and Amelia’s lives. She intervenes several times, giving them money and preventing their deaths. However, her actions begin to destroy the time space, creating a chasm and destroying shelves of books. One day, Jack captures Lisavet and pulls her from the time space. Once she has reacclimated to the outside world, he begins to use her abilities to erase memories; he also learns that she can stop time. In 1954, he tells her that she is going to work as his secretary at the CIA. He allows her to choose her own name, and she picks “Moira.”

Back in the later timeline, Amelia arrives at James’s house, and he shows her watches that Ernest stole from the CIA. The rebels’ plan was to have timekeepers across the world gather government watches and then destroy them, closing off access to the time space. However, Ernest changed this plan at the last minute, and James does not know where he is now. Moira and Jack then arrive, and Jack shoots James, wounding him. When he tries to shoot again, Time stops. Moira reveals that Amelia is the one who caused this and forces Amelia into the time space to protect her, promising to explain later. She then unfreezes time and kills Jack, though not before confirming to him that Amelia is her daughter.

In the earlier timeline, Lisavet, now going by Moira, spends several years as Jack’s secretary. She meets Ernest again, and the two fall in love. Moira begins helping Jack erase timekeepers’ memories. When she interviews Anton’s father, she learns that he knows about her daughter. She freezes time and kills him, vowing always to protect Amelia.

When Jack is promoted to director of the CIA, he insists that Moira must relocate to New York, leaving Ernest in DC as the new head of the TRP. Moira realizes that her presence will always endanger Ernest and Amelia, so she breaks up with Ernest, insisting that he go to DC. That night, Moira goes home with Jack and allows him to have sex with her. In the night, she reads his memories, which she uses to blackmail him into making her the head of the TRP. He complies, allowing her to move the office to New York. Over the next several years, she builds a new life separate from both Jack and Ernest.

In the time space during the later timeline, Azrael helps Amelia and Anton find Lisavet’s book, allowing them to see her memories. Amelia is shocked to learn that Lisavet is her mother, while Anton learns that Lisavet killed his father. Meanwhile, Moira goes to New York, where Ernest has been hiding in an apartment. They discuss the rebels’ plan to destroy the time space; Ernest insists on sacrificing himself to achieve this end and returns to the time space in the night.

When Moira discovers that Ernest is gone, she follows him. She finds Anton and convinces him to help. Anton grabs Ernest, pulling him out of the time space, while Moira apologizes to Amelia for lying about being her mother. Amelia forgives her and then leaves, allowing Moira to find Azrael. Moira goes back to Azrael’s memories of discovering the time space. She kills him, effectively destroying all that has happened within the time space in the years since its discovery.

Amelia emerges from the time space in a different timeline. To her surprise, Lisavet and Ernest are her parents. Because of her unique connection to time, she is able to revisit all her “memories” of this life and to check the time space itself. Instead of organized bookshelves, it is free-floating memories—as it should be. Amelia is content with her new life and never returns to the time space.

Meanwhile, Lisavet’s mind joins the other free-floating memories. She visits all the versions of her life, finding peace and contentment.