Scott Alexander Howard's debut novel is set in a lush alternate reality: a series of villages spread across valleys, each twenty years apart. Odile Ozanne, a sixteen-year-old applying for apprenticeships, is asked, if you could leave your valley, where would you go and why? Odile decides she would stay right where she is, without a need to dive into memories twenty years back in Ouest 1, the valley to the west, or see potential future offspring twenty years ahead in Est 1, the valley to the east. Her answer impresses enough to land her a spot in the elite Conseil's prestigious vetting program; if she makes it through, she will join a group of officials who make decisions regarding petitions from mourners to travel east or west.

The Conseil's sole job is to protect the status quo of time, weighing the benefit of providing grieving petitioners a moment of comfort with the risk of ...