An out-of-work actress gets a job as a tour guide for an ultra-luxury time travel companyonly to discover her trips to the past could upend her presentin this sharp, speculative debut novel.

When Ash spots an ad for Retro during a depressing Instagram scrollshes in debt and unemployed; everyone else is, evidently, thrivingshes surprised the algorithm sent it her way. Shes heard of recreational time travel, but its way out of her budget. Then she sees the caption: Come away with us! Were hiring.

So begins Ashs life as a Time Travel Agent, leading wealthy tourists on vacations to historical hotspots. She takes bachelorette parties to live out their cowboy-romance fantasies in the Old West and throws ’20s for your twenties birthday bashes at speakeasies; she smiles politely as rich Wall Street guys give prospecting a shot in the Gold Rush. It’s all thrilling, outrageous, and totally surreal. Bygone America is just a Retro Metro ride away.

Despite Ashs tendency toward cynicism, she finds herself swept up in her dazzling new job. Sure, Ash isnt the actress she always dreamed shed be. But isnt this so much better? Its like Ashs life is a movie, complete with an impossible love triangle. How is she supposed to choose between her mysterious office crush and the handsome private eye pursuing her in 1937?

For the first time in years, Ashs life feels enviableso shed really rather not pay attention to the strange things happening to her memory and relationships outside Retro. But as her trips threaten to unravel her real life, she confronts an unsettling truth: escaping into the past was never really an escape at all.