Name: The Book of Lost Hours
Author: Hayley Gelfuso

The Book of Lost Hours, Hayley Gelfuso’s debut novel, features an engaging take on time travel and an epic romance in impactful historical fiction. Read my full review.

The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso Book Review Gelfuso's The Book of Lost Hours: Impactful time travel drama

Publication: Allen and Unwin, September 2025

Genre: Fantasy, Historical, Romance, Drama, Mystery, Literature

The Book of Lost Hours Publisher Synopsis

For fans of The Ministry of Time and The Midnight Library, a sweeping, unforgettable novel moving from pre-WWII Germany to Cold War-era America to the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.

Nuremberg, 1938: Lisavet Levy’s watchmaker father saves her from the Nazis by pushing her through a mysterious doorway. There, she discovers the time space—a vast, magical library where memories of the past are stored in books. Her father promises he will follow, but when he doesn’t Lisavet becomes trapped, destined to walk through the memories of those who have lived before.

When she discovers timekeepers are entering the library with the mandate to decide whose memories survive and whose are destroyed, Lisavet tries to salvage scraps of the past as best she can, creating her own book of lost memories. Until one day in 1949, she meets an American timekeeper named Ernest Duquesne, who is intent on keeping Lisavet from her task. What ensues has the power to change the course of history.

Boston, 1965: Amelia Duquesne is mourning her uncle Ernest when an enigmatic CIA agent approaches her to enlist her help in tracking down a strange book her uncle had once sought. But when Amelia enters the time space for the first time, she realises that the past—and the truth—might not be as linear as she’d like to believe.

Gorgeous and unforgettable, The Book of Lost Hours explores memory, fate and the lengths we will go to in order to protect those we love.

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My Review

I am drawn to novels involving time travel – it often adds the extra layer of complexity, mystery and intrigue required to fully engage my brain. I am also drawn to books about books – what booklover isn’t? So The Book of Lost Hours synopsis ticked lots of boxes me.

Debut author Hayley Gelfuso’s prose is strong, with vivid imagery and emotional intensity. This novel’s fantastical construct is ambitious, its plotting complex, and the deeper themes of memory, consent and the lessons of history explored weighty.

“A memory, once it’s over, is never exactly what it was when it was happening. Whatever comes later changes the meaning of it.”

The Book of Lost Hours is also very much historical fiction because the story time settings, WWII and the subsequent Cold War, were unfortunately all too real, and the lessons the world should have learned from them never more topical.

“What could be so dangerous about a life that made somebody want to erase it?”

For the most part though, the strength of Gelfuso’s characters’ convictions and an epic romance (with nostalgic leanings toward The Book Thief and The Time Traveller’s Wife respectively) helps balance out the futility.

If you are a reader who prefers linear narratives and/or all the reveals held to the end, this probably is not the novel for you. But I found The Book of Lost Hours a very interesting, person-centred take on the time travel genre that signals a promising new talent in author Hayley Gelfuso.