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As a donation to the Little Free Library Shed, it gave me an opportunity to read this one. Push myself out of my comfort zone, so to speak, since it is a genre, I am not always interested in reading. Some may refer to it as science fiction.

Or…A contemporary term is��

Speculative fiction. What happens when?...

And so, it begins��

The story opens in 1912. Edwin St. John St. Andrew is on a solo journey from England to Canada. His journey ends when he has a vision in a Vancouver forest and an encounter with a man named Gaspery Roberts.

And then…We are in 2020.

With…A woman named Mirella Kessler who has just learned that her estranged friend Vincent is dead.

And…This section too, refers to a vision in a forest which features Gaspery Roberts.

And then…We are in 2203. And once again there is another new character and a reference to a vision in a forest which features Gaspery Roberts.

So…Within the first 100 pages of this novel, readers are introduced to a group of people, each wracked by loneliness or sadness or purposelessness, but all of whom have experienced this vision and Gaspery Roberts.

And now…We seem to find out who Gaspery Roberts really is.

Apparently�� Gaspery Roberts grew up on the moon in the late 24th century. When the story turns towards him, we are entering the 25th century, and our mystery man is working as a house detective at the Grand Luna Hotel. He also works for a sinister organization called the Time Institute which allows him to travel back into the past to figure out why discrete incidents form different centuries are occurring.

And to share more about what he is up to would be to reveal too much of the plot.

Obviously, we are time traveling here.

The question will become…Why exactly (after all �� they are a sinister organization)?

And…What is Gaspery Roberts intent when he steps into the past (He is a nice guy, after all)?

This story is poignant and deeply absorbing. There are big questions here about the cruel inevitability of time passing, loss, the nature of what we consider reality and, in the end, what really matters.

And…There is a pandemic �� a virus that is quite catastrophic. (Okay, I will mention that part of the story.) How does it feel to realize the world has changed within a moment?

And…Time travel books are a strange world for me. I always wonder what happens when someone decides to mess with time, by inserting themselves into it when they were not originally a part of it. What small change will they make that will impact a future that wasn’t meant to be �� had they not entered into it in the first place?

Which�� Makes a book like this one a perfect discussion book, don’t you think?