Desperate to find her missing sister, a girl in Seoul, South Korea, who possesses time magic risks everything to discover the truth.
Yang Mina, in the guise of an 18-year-old American exchange student, just wants the cute boy from her calculus class to kiss her. It wouldn’t simply be a romantic moment: A kiss would earn Mina infiltration points, which would help her get promoted to associate agent. Mina isn’t human—she’s a descendant of the Japanese dragon god Ryūjin, whose daughter Otohime brought time magic to Earth. With a promotion, Mina could finally have some stability instead of constantly having to move around with her floating agent parents (she has a Japanese mom and a white American dad). She also believes her sister, Hana, who was erased from existence, is still alive somewhere in the timeline. When Mina meets Kim Yejun, a handsome rogue traveler who’s also lost someone, she decides to work with him to fix the timeline that has been affected by corruption within the Korean dragon families’ organization. Working with Yejun means she’ll become a traitor and risk being neutralized herself. Together, they traverse timelines, searching for a solution. This charming love story combines humor, action, magic, and a touch of darkness. The complex explanations of time travel and the butterfly principle can be confusing at first, but everything is ultimately untangled and revealed. Baker effectively integrates facts about Korean history, culture, and landmarks into the fantasy.
An entertaining time-travel romance with intricate worldbuilding.
(Fantasy. 13-18)