Margins
Keeping Time book cover 1
Keeping Time book cover 2
Keeping Time book cover 3
Keeping Time
Series · 3 books · 2011-2018

Books in series

Timepiece book cover
#1

Timepiece

2011

You only THINK you know what happened at Waterloo. The real story involved more monsters. And a lot more time travel. It's 1815, and Wellington's badly-outnumbered army stares across the field of Waterloo at Napoleon's forces. Desperate to hold until reinforcements arrive, Wellington calls upon a race of monsters created by a mad Genevese scientist 25 years before. It's 1815, and a discontented young lady sitting in a rose garden receives a mysterious gift: a pocket watch that, when opened, displays scenes from all eras of history. Past...and future. It's 1885, and a small band of resistance fighters are resorting to increasingly extreme methods in their efforts to overthrow a steampunk Empire whose clockwork gears are slick with its subjects blood. Are these events connected? Oh, come now. That would be telling. "Waterloo and time travel are made for each other and Heather Albano has done a wonderful job of giving us a delightful cast of characters, tasked with stitching together the proper nineteenth century while fending off several monstrous alternatives. Propulsive adventure with historical insight." - Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars and 2312
Timekeeper book cover
#2

Timekeeper

2012

What happens when the Law of Unintended Consequences meets the Time-Travel Paradox? Find out in the thrilling continuation of the Keeping Time trilogy! Follow Elizabeth, William, Maxwell, and the rest as they do their best to set time right... again. Struggling to get history flowing correctly, they encounter a brutal, dystopian regime, steam-powered airships, breathtaking revelations, and a pocket watch that is both a tool and a trap. Time travelers, freedom fighters, Frankenstein’s monster, the Battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon invading Britain by dirigible. What could possibly go wrong? (Science fiction—Steampunk time-travel, historical romance and adventure) "If Jane Austen and Mary Shelley had locked H. G. Wells in a dungeon and revised his wildest work, the result would have been something like this rollicking steampunk time-travel adventure that still manages to be a comedy of manners. Albano s delightful characters confront the not only monsters and killer robots, but their own divided loyalties between personal happiness and the fate of their country." —Ken Schneyer, The Law & the Heart:
Timebound book cover
#3

Timebound

A Steampunk Time-travel Adventure

2018

How do you save today if what you tomorrow may ruin yesterday? The thrilling conclusion of the Keeping Time trilogy! A diva, a crime lord, a resistance fighter, a bohemian—who will she be this time? Katrina, Maxwell, Elizabeth, William, and their comrades have one last chance to set time right… only this time they’re up against time-traveling storm troopers from the Third Reich. What happens when time loops in on itself, and the center of the Gordian knot is a secret, heavily guarded facility in Norway? It turns out that Napoleon wasn’t the only megalomaniac with dreams of world conquest our heroes need to stop! NOW AVAILABLE! (Science fiction Steampunk time-travel, historical romance and adventure) Extract: Exasperated, Maxwell picked up letter and bag together, and the loose drawstring mouth opened, dumping the contents literally into his lap. He had time to think, The last damned thing I want is my father’s watch— Then he got a good look at it. And nothing was ever the same again. One could not be indifferent when one held in one’s hands an object that could not possibly exist. Instead of one face, it had four, two crowded on one side and two on another. One of these looked like it might actually tell time, though it was not doing so at present. The second had both an inner and outer dial, with numbers running all around it. The third was even more complicated, comprised of eight dials nesting within each other. These had numbers as well, ones significant enough that they immediately jumped to his attention: 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 8, 1, 9. The second of November, 1819. The day his parents had vanished. And the fourth face simply could not exist. The fourth face displayed moving images. Tiny ones, but perfectly distinct, a scene aboard a sailing ship that lurched over waves even as he watched it. And then dissolved, to be replaced by knights in plate mail competing in a joust. The dry and logical voice he kept within had no chance to offer any opinions about coincidence, or to speculate with what Georgie might be lacing his brandy. The situation was too real, too immediate, to be considered sardonically at one remove. Maxwell’s heart beat fast and his palms sweated as he held the timepiece. With his other hand he fumbled to pick up the second object the red velvet bag had deposited into his lap. A locket. Of the sort a man rather than a woman would wear, and so the contents came as no particular surprise. This was William Carrington’s memorabilia, after all. Of course he had a locket containing a picture of Elizabeth Barton. Maxwell had only ever seen one portrait of her, the one painted on her sixteenth birthday, a year before she had run off to Gretna Green and her family had disowned her. It had hung in a disused bedchamber in the house of his Barton grandparents, but he had managed to carve out a little time to creep away and stare at it upon each childhood visit. She looked to be a few years older in this little locket miniature, or perhaps it was only the matron’s cap confining her curls that granted the illusion. The letter. The letter would explain all this. He had never in his life opened a letter so eagerly. My dear son, it began. We need your help. And for the second time in two days, Maxwell felt as though he had been punched in the gut. CLICK TODAY TO READ THE TIME-TWISTING CONCLUSION TO THIS BEST-SELLING SERIES!

Author

Heather Albano
Heather Albano
Author · 4 books

Heather Albano is a storyteller, history geek, and lover of both time-travel tropes and re-imaginings of older stories. In addition to novels, she writes interactive fiction. She finds the line between the two getting fuzzier all the time. Heather lives in Massachusetts with her husband, two cats, a tankful of fish, and an excessive amount of tea. Learn more about her various projects at heatheralbano.com.

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2025 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved