When Philip Walker appears as a new student in Michele Windsor's high school class, she is floored. He is the love she thought she lost forever when they said goodbye during her time travels last century. Overjoyed that they can resume the relationship they had a lifetime ago, Michele eagerly approaches him and discovers the unthinkable: he doesn't remember her. In fact, he doesn't seem to remember anything about the Philip Walker of 1910. Michele then finds her father's journals, which tell stories of his time-traveling past. As she digs deeper, she learns about his entanglement with a mysterious and powerful organization called the Time Society and his dealings with a vengeful Windsor ancestor. Michele soon finds herself at the center of a rift over 120 years in the making, one whose resolution will have life-or-death consequences.

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Just when Michele thought it impossible for she and Philip to exist in the same era long term, in walks this new Philip Walker registering as a new student at her high school. He not only shares a name with Michele's love, but he also looks identical to the Edwardian PW and even wears the family signet ring, the very ring Philip gave Michele (which she later lost somewhere during her time travels). Problem is, he has zero recollection of who Michele is, or this other Philip she keeps talking about, or even their past history together, here or in any other time.

As heartbreaking as this is for Michele, she's got bigger problems. Rebecca Windsor, long thought dead, shows up at the Windsor mansion in her former teenage body, threatening a startled Walter and Dorothy with a dark ultimatum: Either they kill their granddaughter in seven days or she will. 

Walter and Dorothy aren't psychopaths. Naturally, they have no intention of killing Michele. They want to take her back to LA to hide her til things blow over, but Michele feels she's better off just facing Rebecca straight on. While waiting for her doomsday to come, Michele comes across journals belonging to her father, documenting his own time traveling adventures and his involvement with the Time Society. Taking in the information from these notebooks, and continuing to work on Philip (trying to restore his memory), she eventually makes progress and begins to formulate a plan on how to bring down revenge-fueled Rebecca once and for all. Michele also meets with Elizabeth, a childhood friend of her mother's, now working as a psychic medium. Elizabeth offers to use hypnosis on Michele to see if they can unlock anything in her mind in terms of past life regression.

"Any traveler who leaves his or her present lives like a ghost, only seen by Timekeepers and those few humans with the Gift of Sight, until they've been in another time for seven days.... Timekeepers weren't meant to stay in a different time long enough to impact it. Even the smallest actions from an outsider resulted in serious consequences. A well-meaning Timekeeper who attempted to reverse a loved one's death or ill fortune found an even ghastlier outcome... the time traveler's role was only to observe, learn, and protect the natural Timeline. 

 

 The Gift of Sight is the ability for ordinary human beings, those with no powers, to see and interact with spirits and time travelers. Sometimes known as mediums, many of the people who posess the Gift, believe they are seeing ghosts. In actuality, the appararitions they see are not ghosts but time travelers who have not yet reached Visibility or their full physical form in the alternate time.

 

 We have found that the Gift of Sight runs in families. As of this entry in 1880, our experiments show that 5% of families in the US carry the Gift. This means we Timekeepers must always be on alert. Our actions in the past and future can be seen.

 

Before you proceed, it is crucial to know and understand your gift --- a gift that, depending on how it is used, can lead to either great fortune or terrible tragedy. "

 

 * The Handbook of the Time Society

Everything in Timekeeper is just all around BETTER than the earlier books... just as a sequel should be! The historical environment is every bit as details as earlier in the series, the romance better developed, the specifics of the Time Society well plotted out. The relationship between Philip and Michele has more developed angst, yet there is a really cool friendship between them now that wasn't as rich in the first book. It's especially noticeable in the scenes where Michele (always in her current age) has talks with an aging Philip as they reunite through various points in time. I confess, I like the older installment of Philip more than either of the eighteen year old editions. But while it's great to see one side of the equation work out, it is still a little sad to have it drift away on the other end. 

There exists a secret society where one's ability to travel through time is "gifted" to members only by blood. Those who try to enter the society quickly come to realize that time is a force not to be reckoned with.  Alexandra Monir's short story exclusive ebook, Secrets of the Time Society, sheds light upon the world created in her novel Timeless and forecasts the fate that lies ahead for its protagonist, Michele Windsor. Now that Michele is gifted, there are some who will do anything to take that power away.

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Winter 1888, NYC: Seventeen year old Rebecca Windsor receives a visit from the mysterious Millicent August, who hands Rebecca a book titled Handbook of the Time Society, insisting she read it. Millicent goes on to explain that she is the founder and president of the Time Society, an organization dedicated to bringing together individuals born with genes that gift them the ability to time travel. Millicent also has a team of Detectors, those who can spot out of place time travelers, who identified Rebecca in NYC in 1918. 

Rebecca came by her time traveling abilities through mildly criminal means. Coming clean about it could affect a certain relationship of hers she hopes to steer in a romantic direction. Though she doesn't want to lose the guy, she also becomes power hungry to "have it all". 

Fast-forwarding from 1888 to 1910, the pivotal year of TIMELESS, Rebecca is now a spinster, nearly 40 years of age, aunt to Violet (the girl Philip is engaged to when he first meets Michele). Rebecca actually witnesses that initial meeting of TIMELESS's two main characters, unbeknownst to them. She puts facts together and realizes the likely secret of Michele's lineage. Once it's made clear, Rebecca becomes consumed with reversing history, regardless of consequences.

"Behaving out of line with the time you are in has had disastrous consequences for several Timekeepers, so it's important to assimilate."

So yes, we learn a little extra of Michele's lineage, namely the secrets surrounding the father she's never known and what might be the real story behind his disappearance. But mostly it's a rundown of Time Society framework: how the all-important necklace came to have its time jumping properties, the setup, hierarchy, and ground rules for membership in the Time Society, as well as an introduction to Time Society HQ, based in San Diego, CA. Being born and raised in San Diego myself, reading the hotel described as a building disguised as a seaside hotel, "a beautiful porcelain castle with its gleaming white lattice work and turreted red roofs", I can't help but think author Alexandra Monir was inspired by the Hotel Del Coronado (technically on Coronado Island, off the coast of San Diego, but still pretty much considered to be part of the area). I also have to wonder if she perhaps read Richard Matheson's Somewhere In Time (or at least watched the film adaptation) --- another time traveling novel also based at Hotel Del. It was interesting to read that all time leaps within the Time Society have to fall between 1492 - 1991.

 Hotel Del Coronado, image © Rick Avena Photography

This 23 page short story serves as a little bridge between Timeless and Timekeeper.  It was originally offered as an ebook exclusive, but I've since read that a short story was included in the paperback edition of Timekeeper... I'm assuming it is the print version of this ebook (I read from the hardback edition, which does not have it). If that is indeed what the publisher did, I'm happy with that. For how short this book is, to previously make it available only through e-format felt like something of a cheap money grab. But the story itself is good and definitely entices readers to jump right into TIMEKEEPER.

When tragedy strikes Michele Windsor’s world, she is forced to uproot her life and move across the country to New York City, to live with the wealthy, aristocratic grandparents she’s never met. In their old Fifth Avenue mansion filled with a century’s worth of family secrets, Michele discovers a diary that hurtles her back in time to the year 1910. There, in the midst of the glamorous Gilded Age, Michele meets the young man with striking blue eyes who has haunted her dreams all her life – a man she always wished was real, but never imagined could actually exist. And she finds herself falling for him, into an otherworldly, time-crossed romance. Michele is soon leading a double life, struggling to balance her contemporary high school world with her escapes into the past. But when she stumbles upon a terrible discovery, she is propelled on a race through history to save the boy she loves – a quest that will determine the fate of both of their lives.

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When Leo, an Italian championship swimmer, and Naomi, a science genius from California, are two of the twenty-four teens drafted into the International Space Training Camp, their lives are forever altered. After erratic climate change has made Earth a dangerous place to live, the fate of the population rests on the shoulders of the final six who will be scouting a new planet. Intense training, global scrutiny, and cutthroat opponents are only a few of the hurdles the contestants must endure in this competition.

For Leo, the prospect of traveling to Europa—Jupiter’s moon—to help resettle humankind is just the sense of purpose he’s been yearning for since losing his entire family in the flooding of Rome. Naomi, after learning of a similar space mission that mysteriously failed, suspects the ISTC isn’t being up front with them about what’s at risk.

As the race to the final six advances, the tests get more challenging—even deadly. With pressure mounting, Naomi finds an unexpected friend in Leo, and the two grow closer with each mind-boggling experience they encounter. But it’s only when the finalists become fewer and their destinies grow nearer that the two can fathom the full weight of everything at stake: the world, the stars, and their lives. - Synopsis

I actually really liked this book. There were some things in the book that made it hard for me to believe... things that just wouldn't be possible to do in a closely guarded government facility but I have learned to leave my common sense at the cover and not dwell too much on things like that. The book leaves you on a cliffhanger so I am hoping she writes another as I would definitely read it.

I am using this for the Doomsday square!