Timebound

In this time-travel adventure, which won the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in the YA category, Walker delivers a solid, leisurely paced tale that mixes romance with temporal intrigue. Kate Pierce-Keller is stunned when her formerly estranged grandmother tells her about a secret family history involving time travel and a conspiracy by a rogue scholar from the future to rewrite society through the use of retroactively inserted religion. When history alters, and Kate's family is lost, only she remains to travel back to the 1893 World's Fair and prevent the murder that changed everything. Walker has clearly thought through the complicated layers of world-building and temporal hijinks, keeping the story's multiple strands from getting too tangled. Kate is a strong, memorable protagonist, and her romance with Trey, the boy she meets in an altered timeline, is sweet and believable. However, the plot simmers for much of the book, heavy with infodumps, informed backstory, and little progress. The dense mythology seeks to pack more than necessary into an already crowded narrative, leading to an imbalanced, though entertaining story. Ages 12%E2%80%93up. (Dec.)