COSTUMES FOR TIME TRAVELERS

A young tailor and a mysteriously familiar time savant must save time travelers from a terrible fate in this queer fantasy romance.

Calisto lives in the town of Pocket, a place that’s outside of time—it’s the waystation time travelers must pass through on their journeys to other whens. There they work as a tailor, creating beautifully detailed and accurate costumes for the travelers. Calisto never plans to travel through time themself—until Fawkes arrives. A time savant, Fawkes has been traveling through time since he was a child, slipping easily from one time to another without having to pass through Pocket. His talents also mean he catches glimpses of the future—and he’s seen Calisto before. But close behind Fawkes are the Time Wardens, who want time to be strictly regulated, which means getting rid of travelers. Together, Calisto and Fawkes will have to master their temporal abilities to stop the Time Wardens and save Pocket—and along the way, they fall in love. The rich and beautifully drawn world that readers will want to lose themselves in is unfortunately let down by a plot that collapses in on itself under the weight of explanations of time travel and its aftereffects that get progressively more convoluted and confusing. An introductory note indicates that the book has been translated from Seam, the language used in Pocket, which uses “natural measures of time: sunlight, seasons, stars.” The main characters present white.

A uniquely dazzling setting undermined by muddled worldbuilding.