Timekeeper, a young adult novel by Alexandra Monir, is the second in a series which began with Timeless. It will be popular with teen girls who are interested in time travel or who enjoyed Twilight. Parents may appreciate the total lack of inappropriate language and of sex in the book, which provides classic romance but no physical action hotter than a kiss.
There’s also plenty of suspense, as 16-year-old Michele Windsor, who is orphaned and living with her grandparents after her mother’s accidental death and who can travel in time, has to figure out how to conquer a sinister figure from the 19th Century who wants her dead, with only seven days to defeat the woman or suffer dire consequences.
Meanwhile, a new boy has showed up in school, Philip Windsor, who looks exactly like the Philip Windsor with whom Michele was deeply in love in the 19th Century during her time travels. They were torn apart because Michele could not stay in the past, and he promised to find a way to come to her. Now he is at her school, and Michele is more and more convinced that he is her Philip. But why does he not remember her?
Seeking for answers, Michele finds her father’s diaries and learns that she is a time-crossed child, whose father came from the 19th Century and fell in love with her mother in the 20th, breaking the rules by lingering and by fathering a child before being forced to return to his own time prior to her birth. Now, she needs to travel back in time to meet the father she never knew and get some answers she desperately needs before it is too late.
Will Philip remember Michele? Will she defeat the evil Rebecca? Will she find her father and get the answers she needs?
For adults, much of this book will seem predictable and the romance very tame. The themes of lovers crossed by time and nemeses from the past have certainly been done before. Still, the story has charm. It is recommended for the audience for which it was written, girls between the ages of 12 and 16 especially.