Book Review: The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

The Book of Lost Hours by Hayley Gelfuso

 Book title: The Book of Lost Hours
Author: Hayley Gelfuso
Genre: Historical fantasy
Published: August 26, 2025
391 pages
My rating: 5/5

“A memory, once it’s over, is never exactly what it was when it was happening. Whatever comes later changes the meaning of it.”

Eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in a vast library where memories are stored in books. As she grows up among the memories, she discovers that government agents are destroying memories to maintain their preferred version of history. She attempts to salvage as many memories as she can, but when an American agent Ernest Duquesne is sent to stop her, she must risk everything to change history itself.

The Book of Lost Hours is Hayley Gelfuso’s adult historical fantasy and an instant five star read for me. I can already tell that this will be one of my favorite books this year. I listened to it as an audio book, but I wish I had this as a physical book so I could have savored it longer! That being said, the audio book narrator did a great job, and I enjoyed the listening experience.

Besides Lisavet Levy, the girl trapped in the mysterious time space of stored memories, the book follows Ernest’s sixteen-year-old niece Amelia Duquesne. Amelia is mourning the loss of her uncle, when an enigmatic CIA agent seeks her help racking down a book of saved memories Lisavet collected. The Book of Lost Hours has a dual timeline, moving between Lisavet’s experiences in the time space and Amelia’s Cold War-era America.

The blurb compares this book to Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, but it’s really nothing like it. Yes, there’s some discussion about the possibility of alternative timelines, but at its heart, The Book of Lost Hours explores the impact of censorship and the question of whose memories are worth saving and keeping.

There’s a little bit of murder mystery and some Cold War espionage mixed with the speculative fiction/fantasy worldbuilding. The worldbuilding was vivid and immersive, and I loved the characters. Lisavet’s determination made even some of her more questionable decisions understandable, and I even liked Amelia’s teenage-angsty stubbornness, which isn’t an easy feat to pull off.

If you love fantasy or speculative fiction with time travel/alternate history with some philosophical discussions and a little bit of mystery, I think you’ll enjoy this book. Like I said, this is already one of my favorite books this year, and I gave it full five stars.