Publisher's Synopsis
Set in a universe where time is a resource-coveted and exploited, the key to power and privilege-this dazzlingly inventive sci-fi fantasy romance, the first in a duology by a best-selling author, binds two strangers together in a deadly quest.
Bewildered after the high-profile death of her father, Margo is on a train to a new boarding school when she slips into a world with shorter days. There she meets a silvery stranger named Moon, who explains that New Davia is part of a universe scarred by uprisings, travel bans, and world sealings. Power is determined by how planets experience time: leaders on planets with longer days brutally hold influence, while people on planets like New Davia, where the day is just six hours long, age rapidly and barely survive. Moon and other tattooed salesmen move between worlds but suffer the debilitating effects of skipshock. He's ready to quit, but his friends in a pro-travel rebel group have zeroed in on Margo, whose ability to get in from a sealed world might be their passport to freedom. The two join uneasy forces to trace her path home, unlocking a world of secrecy, passion, and betrayal. Told in alternating points of view in vivid, cinematic prose by the best-selling author of the Gifts trilogy, this brilliant epic-the first book in a planned duology-will assure that you never look at a clock the same way again.
