When a rupture tears Dan out of the present and throws him back to 2003, he finds Celia as she was at fourteen: brilliant, guarded, angry, and unaware of the future in which she will die. This version of the past is different. The custodian who once became a monster hasnât crossed that line yet, and Celia doesnât remember any timeline where Dan saved herâor failed her.
As temporal fractures widen, disturbing anomalies bleed through reality: masked figures moving through school corridors, frost forming on metal bleachers in early fall, moments repeating seconds out of sync. A version of Langâolder, masked, and existing across timelinesâmoves through the cracks, hunting Dan and Celia.
Danâs objective is simple but impossible: keep Celia alive without altering the year that shapes her. Every attempt to protect her risks destabilizing the timeline. Every anchor draws the masked Lang closer. Each choice creates a new fracture, pushing time closer to collapse.
To save her, Dan must walk beside a girl who doesnât trust him, confront his past self, and face a predator unbound by linear time. One wrong moment could reset everything.
Winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award (Book One)
When a rupture tears Dan out of the present and throws him back to 2003, he finds Celia as she was at fourteen: brilliant, guarded, angry, and unaware of the future in which she will die. This version of the past is different. The custodian who once became a monster hasnât crossed that line yet, and Celia doesnât remember any timeline where Dan saved herâor failed her.
As temporal fractures widen, disturbing anomalies bleed through reality: masked figures moving through school corridors, frost forming on metal bleachers in early fall, moments repeating seconds out of sync. A version of Langâolder, masked, and existing across timelinesâmoves through the cracks, hunting Dan and Celia.
Danâs objective is simple but impossible: keep Celia alive without altering the year that shapes her. Every attempt to protect her risks destabilizing the timeline. Every anchor draws the masked Lang closer. Each choice creates a new fracture, pushing time closer to collapse.
To save her, Dan must walk beside a girl who doesnât trust him, confront his past self, and face a predator unbound by linear time. One wrong moment could reset everything.
Winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award (Book One)
Chapter 1 â Quiet
The second-to-last stair squeaked.
Dan lifted his heel over the loose board, but it still betrayed him.
From below came a faint shift â wood sighing where it shouldnât. Then stillness.
âCaught you,â Celia called from the kitchen.
He leaned against the doorway. âI was sneaking.â
âYouâre loud in every timeline.â She flipped a pancake, the pan hissing softly. âAnd you like that squeak. Keeps you honest. Grab plates.â
He opened the cabinet and set two on the counter.
Butter and browned batter warmed the air. Sunlight banded the counter, her forearms, and the chipped ceramic clown on the sill â a tacky relic she refused to throw out.
As Dan passed it, the hair on his arms lifted. No draft. Just a flash of cold â there, then gone.
He dragged out a chair and sat. âFine, you win. Breakfast first.â
âYou should.â She plated one, then another, and slid them toward him. âYou wanted normal. Normal means breakfast. It means socks that migrate to the hamper without needing a map.â
Danâs eyes flicked toward the counter. His socks sat folded near the fruit bowl, two white flags in enemy territory. He snatched them up and stuffed them into his back pocket.
âTime anomalies,â he said.
They ate in silence, the small kind that fills space with ease rather than tension. The refrigerator hummed. A neighborâs car passed with a cracked muffler. Outside, a dog announced the mail truck like it was an invasion. Dan chewed slowly, letting the quiet sink down into his chest. There were mornings like this, mornings where the world held still long enough to believe in it.
Celia poured syrup, paused halfway through. âYou hear that?â
He raised his fork. âWhat?â
âThe quiet.â
He listened â house, breath, nothing else. âI do.â
âDonât ruin it.â She smiled and went back to her pancakes.
The quiet held until the blue jay arrived. It scolded from the patio railing. Celia scolded back under her breath, like theyâd struck a private deal.
When the plates were cleared, Dan rinsed them. He liked the simple work of soap and water â problems that behaved. Celia bumped his hip to move him down the sink. He bumped back. She shoved harder. He staged a mock stumble.
âSo,â she said, drying her hands, âwhatâs on your schedule today, Mr. Domestic? Other than explaining how your socks teleported to the counter.â
âFix the cabinet hinge. Do something about the attic door so it quits slapping at night. Maybe mow the yard.â
âYou âmaybe mowâ every day.â
âI like to weigh the evidence.â
âYou mean you read the mower manual.â
He shrugged. âSafety first.â
Celia crossed into the living room, phone in hand. The snap of a picture followed. âWhat are you doing?â
âListing it,â she said.
He followed her gaze to the ceramic clown in the window. She framed another shot. âSomeone out there collects cursed tchotchkes. Might even get twenty bucks.â
Then, softer: âSorry, Mom. I know you told me not to get rid of it. But it was a source of sadness for you.â
Danâs chest tightened. âYou canât sell that.â
Celia arched a brow. âYou care more about this clown than your socks.â
âItâs proof weâre still us,â he said before he could stop himself.
She blinked, then snorted. âThatâs the saddest romantic line Iâve ever heard.â She tucked the phone away. âFine. Your ugly proof gets to live another day.â
Dan stared at the clown. Its grin caught the light wrongâtoo many teeth, too much shine. He looked away first.
He went for the toolbox. The cabinet hinge groaned when he loosened the screws. He preferred this: wood, screw, hinge, done. No masks. No fractured clocks. No blood.
From the living room Celia called, âYouâre humming.â
âI hum.â
âYou hum when youâre nervous.â
âI hum when I hold a screwdriver.â
âBoth can be true,â she said.
He tightened the hinge until the door closed smooth and clean.
âYouâre avoiding the attic,â she added.
âIâm planning the attic.â
âYouâre avoiding it because it reminds youââ
âOf insulation,â he cut in.
The book sheâd been holding closed softly. âNo. Because thatâs where we put everything we promised to face. The pictures. The old diaries. Younger me.â
All the things they couldnât bring themselves to throw awayâthe proof theyâd once tried to start over.
He froze, the screwdriver still in his hand.
She stepped closer, voice lower now. âWe said weâd talk everything out. But you keep trying to fix the past instead of looking at it.â
Her fingers brushed his wrist, light but grounding. âIâm okay.â
âI know you are.â His voice didnât.
Her smile tilted. âWeâre okay.â
He nodded. âWeâre okay.â
She patted his chest twice, testing a door sheâd just repaired. âGood. Now come help the attic before it breeds ghosts.â
They hauled the ladder down and pushed into the warm dark. Dust motes swam through the slice of sunlight. Boxes leaned against rafters, labeled in Celiaâs handwritingâChristmas, Kitchen Spares, Old Diaries.
She ducked through with a flashlight. Dan watched her move and thought about how many times heâd seen her die. How many times heâd clawed her back. Love sat on his shoulders like a weight he didnât want to put down.
Celia crouched, brushed dust off one box, squinted, and pulled out a slim diary. She flipped through the yellowed pages and smirked.
âTheyâre full of my thoughts on life,â she said.
Dan grinned. âDangerous reading material.â
âActually,â she said, thumbing a page, âif I remember right, itâs mostly about keeping you in line.â
âFigures.â
She looked up, smiling faintly. âYouâre staring again.â
He crouched beside a box, eyes shifting over the clutter. âManuals donât judge.â Her laugh broke the attic stillness like light through dust.
***
Dan woke to silence thick enough to scrape the walls. Celia slept beside him, breathing steady.
He stared at the ceiling. Somewhere outside, a dog barked twice and cut off mid-sound.
The quiet returnedâheavy, unnatural.
He touched the drawer handle beside the bed. The hinge heâd fixed downstairs wouldnât squeak again. The attic door wouldnât slap anymore. Every little problem had been solved.
It should have felt like safety.
Instead it felt like warning.
Chapter 2 â The Broadcast
Celia woke first.
Dan surfaced to the smell of coffee and her hummingâquiet, tuneless, but steady. It was the sound she made when she needed the morning to behave.
He followed the scent downstairs. The kitchen glowed with early light. Celia sat in her robe, hair tangled, eyes narrowed at a crossword.
âYouâre up late,â she said without looking up.
âI calculated it.â
âThree-letter word for unreliable. Starts with D.â He stole her mug. âThatâs rude,â he said.
âFits perfectly.â She took it back. âD-A-N.â
He poured his own coffee. For a while it felt easyâyesterdayâs pancakes, todayâs caffeine, the rhythm theyâd been trying to rebuild. The refrigerator hummed too loud. Outside, a jogger passed, a dog barked, a mail truck groaned by. Ordinary things, too ordinary.
Celia caught him staring at the window. âWhat?â
âNothing.â
âLiar.â
He looked away. The ceramic clown still grinned from the counter, its paint cracked deeper in daylight.
She stretched, yawning. âDonât start the day already brooding. Itâs glorious out thereâlook.â
He glanced. The sky was just gray enough to argue with her.
âGlorious,â he echoed. âSure.â
She smiled into her coffee. âFake it till itâs true.â By noon, the calm had thinned.
Dan sprawled on the couch with a mower manual while Celia flipped on the TV.
The anchorâs voice rolled out smooth and practicedâthe kind used for disasters, not news.
âAuthorities confirm the escape of convicted felon Martin Lang from a maximum-security facility late last nightâŚâ
Celia froze mid-motion. âThey said he was secure.â
âPrisons are never secure enough.â
The broadcast blurredâinjured guard, stolen vehicle, roadblocks.
Dan only saw Celiaâs face.
âI thought we were done with him,â she whispered.
âWe were,â he said. âWe are.â
Her laugh cracked. âDoesnât change anything. Heâll come here.â
He took the remote from her, set it aside. âHe canât touch you. Not anymore.â
âYou sound sure.â
âI am. If he comes near you, he wonât leave breathing.â
The heater clicked without starting. Pipes shifted in the walls like something listening.
Then the phone rangâviolent, too loud, too close. Both of them jerked.
Dan grabbed the receiver. âYeah. We heard. Langâs escaped.â
A tin voice: No units available. Weâll increase patrolsâthree, maybe four a night.
âDo it.â
He hung up. Silence returned heavier than before. Celiaâs fingers stayed locked together, as if that alone could keep the world from moving.
That night, neither of them slept much.
Celia turned toward him in the dark, whispering, âHeâs coming.â
âYou donât know that.â
âI do. He always finds me.â
He found her hand and held on. âThen let him try.â
Her grip stayed until she drifted off, breath uneven. Dan lay awake, counting the creaks in the house, marking each one like a countdown.
Then the smell reached himâchemical, sharp, wrong.
He coughed, tried to sit up, but his chest seized. The air burned. His lips were held in place.
Beside him, Celia stirred. âDan?â
He turned toward her, blinking through the sting, desperate to answer, to warn herâbut the rag was already there.
It clamped over his mouth, soaked and burning. Air vanished.
A gloved hand gripped his collar, dragging him upright as the room spun. Through the mask, a voice whisperedâsteady, almost kind.
âI warned you. Thereâs more than one way to control time.â
Something hard struck his skull. White flared to red, then the world was gone.
He woke gasping.
A heavy ache settled behind his eyes, thick and slow.
He was still in bed.
The air was clean againâfaintly sweet with her shampoo. Morning light spilled across the blanket, too gentle to trust. For a second he believed it. A nightmare. A bad dream about old ghosts.
Celiaâs side of the bed was cold, but her lavender scent clung to the sheets. âCelia?â he called softly, stretching a hand out to feel her.
No answer.
His hand met soft linen sheets.
He sat up too fast. The room tilted. The smell lingeredâsweet under the clean air, faintly chemical.
Downstairs, a soft sound. The house settlingâor not. He swung his legs out of bed, feet hitting the cold floor, and followed the quiet.
The living room was still.
The stairs waited in pale light.
She lay at the bottom. Knife in her chest. Eyes open, unseeing.
The sound that left him wasnât a word. He dropped beside her, shaking, hands hovering useless over the blood. The front door hung ajar, breathing in the dawn.
He pressed his forehead to hers. âI promised,â he rasped. âI promised Iâd keep you safe.â
No response. Just the hum of the house pretending to be alive.
His mind clawed for sense. Call for helpâtoo late. Runâpointless. Nothing rewound this.
UnlessâŚ
The anchor.
The seam in time tied to this house, this moment. He could go back. Warn her. Stop it.
But anchors werenât clean. They were scars torn through grief. Land wrong and heâd arrive too early or too late, condemned to relive the same seconds until his mind cracked.
He imagined it anyway: her alive again, smiling, him failing again.
The thought hollowed him out.
Then something darker took its place.
Lang alive somewhere, untouched. Lang laughing. Lang as a boy, cruel already, testing how long a smaller creature could hold its breath. Dan saw himself there tooâolder, biggerâgripping that boyâs shoulders, forcing him under bathwater while bubbles rose and popped.
He saw Lang again, grown now, cornered in the dark, the same fear clawing at his face.
He saw a crib nextâa babyâs chest rising and falling, his own hand hovering inches above it. Just a push, a mercy. One horror erased before it could begin.
His stomach turned. He gagged, braced on the floorboards. But the image wouldnât leave.
âLangâs the constant,â he whispered. âHeâs the disease.â
Celiaâs voice flickered in memoryâteasing him over breakfast, bright, alive. It crushed him.
âThen itâs him,â he said again, steadier. âIt has to be him.â
He wiped his face, dragged on jeans, missed a button, didnât care. Rage moved faster than his hands. The air still reeked faintly of chemicals.
The stair groaned beneath his weight as he descended.
He didnât avoid the sound this time.
He welcomed itâa warning carried on poison air.
I do like a time-travel tale and Dan Uselton has created one in this book which manages to deliver tension in spades. Characters try and combat their present without altering their futures irreparably and survive while doing it. It's a tricky thing all in all but I think that Uselton has carried it off.
It starts with an explosive event which tells us much about what is the ongoing threat in the book. Celia and Dan are a happily married couple but their contented lifestyle is going to be torn apart. Dan then gets transported back to Celia's past when she was 12 (although the synopsis says 14 which is more credible with the way that Uselton depicts her and sits more comfortably with me) and has the means potentially to stop what happens in his present from occurring at all - he can save his wife.
But just warning Celia is not enough as the same threat is present in her past. Trying to convince Celia that older Dan is there to help her is a key part of the story.
I didn't focus too much on the machinery of the book in terms of the time travel and how it all meshes. I think, generally, in order for time travel books to work, a suspension of the scrutiny of the mechanics means that you can concentrate on the action and the story rather than how it's all been put together. I can tell you that there were anchors and a blurring of the membrane which separates "baddy through time" from being able to access his potential victim and a fear of future characters meeting themselves in the past.
The action of the book is a game of cat and mouse and concentrates on preparing Celia for what she may face, a fight for her life, which becomes increasingly important every day. There is a smidge of teenage relationship tension too which is a small sub-plot to the main action.
There was much to like: there were lines that I thought were incredibly well-crafted and evocative like "He felt how small a person is when the night has more edges than exits." I mean, that is a wonderful description. Another strength is Uselton draws his characters really well especially Celia and her sister who exchange dialogue which reads truly. You're invested in them.
Worth giving a go.