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Ashes through the Hourglass
Paperback
Mystery & ThrillerScience Fiction
Publisher Price: $17.99
ISBN13: 9781917842204
Publisher: Big Thinking Publishing
Published: Jun 2 2026
Pages: 388
Weight: 0.84
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
You can't outrun the past.
Tormented by his sister's death, Mason Winward spirals towards vengeance until a stranger pulls him from the brink.
Slowly, Mason rebuilds his life. Then without warning, the stranger vanishes. Years later, Mason discovers the impossible: a doorway into the past. With the help of his long-term friend, Alex, he begins travelling back in time to rescue children from the edge of irreversible despair, becoming a pioneer of a dangerous new kind of salvation.
But when one of those rescues ends in murder, everything unravels.
Now Mason must confront fate, choice, and consequence. How much of history can be changed, and at what cost? And after decades of searching, one question remains:
What became of the man who once saved him?
Ashes Through the Hourglass is a psychological thriller blending dark humour with grief, memory, second chances, and the fragility of human existence.
When his older sister, Cassie, is killed in a devastating car accident, Mason Winward becomes obsessed with revenge against the driver who escaped justice. Standing on the brink of committing an irreversible act of violence, Mason is unexpectedly stopped by a mysterious stranger who offers Mason a different path. Just as Mason begins to rebuild his life, however, the man disappears without explanation, leaving behind a mystery that will shadow Mason for decades.
Years later, Mason teams up with his brilliant college friend Alex Henry, an astrophysicist who discovers a way to breach the boundaries of time itself. Together they establish a research facility dedicated to a radical new form of intervention known as Temporal Re-alignment Therapy. Operating from a cutting-edge structure called The Hourglass, Mason and Alex begin travelling back in time to critical moments in the lives of vulnerable children.
Their mission is simple, but dangerous: prevent catastrophic decisions before they happen.
Joined by Mason's partner, Katie, the team intervenes in pivotal moments of despair, attempting to redirect lives before tragedy unfolds. Yet every alteration carries consequences, and each journey into the past raises unsettling questions about fate, responsibility, and the fragile architecture of human history.
While Mason works to save others from the darkness he once faced, he remains haunted by the unresolved mystery of his own past. Who was the mysterious man who once saved him? And how did he know exactly when to appear?
When one intervention spirals unexpectedly into violence, Mason's carefully constructed mission begins to unravel. Forced to confront the limits of time travel and the unintended consequences of altering the past, Mason must face the deepest question of all:
How much of history can be changed, and at what cost?
Blending psychological thriller, speculative science fiction, and dark humour, Ashes Through the Hourglass explores memory, grief, second chances, and the delicate balance between fate and free will. It is a haunting story about the moments that shape people, the people who save people, and the possibility that even the smallest intervention can alter the course of a life.
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