I've never read the author's other works but that doesn't really matter here. I was caught by the description alone.

It's a high-fantasy time-travel novel!

Yup. So we have all the goodies of messed up timelines, time-walkers, and similar time/space practitioners in a magic rule system seated in a heavily world-built fantasy world! All the benefits of a kingdom built from scratch AND the breaking of it several times during different periods of its history!

Yay!

And I wasn't disappointed in the text, either. It starts great with a kid on his effective journeyman quest, only when he's asked to break the rules, we're slapped in the face with the consequences of this particular magic.

Every day you go back in time ages you in direct proportion. A fifteen-year-old going back in time by 14 years will have lost half his life in a single jump. Ouch.

I can easily recommend this to fans of either Epic Fantasy or Time Travel SF. It combines the best of both worlds and with all the assassins, intrigue, and even love going on here, the novel entertains very roundly indeed.

Officially it could be classified as a "saving the baby" tale, but because we keep seeing the timeline change in future and the kingdom change with it, it gets very interesting.

My only complaint? The ending is only mildly satisfying. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a series or a single novel, but if it's a single novel, then I kind of wish it came with a more kickin' ending. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the beginning and the core. :) ( )

When the cost of time travel is actual time off your life, to travel 14 years in the past is a huge sacrifice, but to stop a war from happening seems to be worth it to a 15-year-old Walker named Tobias. The problem is that other people are very motivated to see this war happen and crush the kingdom that Tobias has gone to work for straight out of school. Tobias is now on the run with an infant princess, looking and sounding like a 29-year-old man, he is still very much a 15-year-old boy inside trying to do the right thing. An interesting world setup with not only time walkers but people that can phase through solid walls and others that can travel great distances make all tree types very useful to the various kingdoms around this world. A fun read and there are more planned in this series.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

( )

This very fast moving but only vaguely involving story plays out in segments 14 years apart with some unsupported decisions causing major disasters and motivations all over the place, but never believable. The bad guy is a placeholder autarch with inexplicably obedient minions.
Time traveling costs walkers the amount of time the jump, so to go back one year is to arrive a year older. Sine going forward also costs the same, I wonder why any one jumps forward, but that isn't discussed. There is also seemingly cost free teleporting and walking through walls but the difference is also not discussed. ( )