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A Wound in Time: A YA Steampunk Adventure About an Apprentice Who Can't Keep Time
A Wound in Time by C. V. Wooster is a YA steampunk alternative-history novel for readers 13 to 17. A clockmaker's apprentice in a city ruled by clocks is pulled into a realm where time has broken. Now on Kindle.
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A Wound in Time is a young adult steampunk novel by C. V. Wooster, publisher of this site. Its alternative history follows a city that runs entirely on clockwork. The book was released on Kindle on August 27, 2026, runs 216 pages, and is aimed at readers ages 13 to 17.
See A Wound in Time on Amazon →
The story
A question opens the book's Amazon description: "What if the wound that broke the world runs straight through you?"
Horologium is a city where every second has to be accounted for. Each gear, pendulum and citizen moves in perfect rhythm, and arriving even one second late feels close to a crime. Wren serves as apprentice to the city's gruff, guarded Clockmaker, helping him keep Horologium on schedule. Her problem is that her own mind refuses to keep the pace. She drifts, loses the thread, and always seems to arrive a beat behind everyone around her.
That changes when the tower's ancient pendulum begins skipping beats that no clock should ever skip. Wren is pulled into the in-between, a fractured realm of frozen cities that never thaw and broken timelines that echo with voices caught mid-second. Somewhere inside it, an ancient gear hums with a secret that someone worked hard to bury. Time itself has been shattered, and the wound left behind is coming apart.
Saving Horologium means Wren must meet a Clockmaker she never knew existed: a man carrying grief older than the city. On the way she has to survive a city made entirely of machines, face a sharper mirror of herself, and outlast a Saboteur who stopped being human long ago. She also has to work out what protecting time truly means. The description's answer is that it isn't about conquering time. It is about keeping faith with the people who rely on her, even when her rhythm never quite lines up with theirs.
Who it's for
According to the Amazon listing, the book is meant for readers who love:
- Steampunk worlds packed with gears, portals and impossible machines
- Adventure that bends time and hops across a multiverse
- Young heroines whose "flaws" prove to be exactly what the world needs
- Grief, legacy and the courage to keep going, even when the clock insists the hour is already late
The listing closes with a line of its own: "Mind the gears. Horologium is waiting."
Book details
- Title: A Wound in Time
- Author: C. V. Wooster
- Format: Kindle eBook
- Published: August 27, 2026
- Length: 216 pages
- Genre: YA steampunk, alternative history
- Reading age: 13 to 17
- ASIN: B0FNTJSYJ1
Get A Wound in Time on Amazon →
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Image: A Wound in Time cover, from its Amazon listing.
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