Rebellious and immature Finn Howell turns his life around when he meets the young, sophisticated Maia Boerio and falls deeply in love with her. Their shared love of rare novels becomes a burden in Finn's life when he finds a series called A Tale of Time piled in with one of his rare book purchases. It is no ordinary series of rare novels, though.

These six books were published in the mid-nineteenth century, but they describe world events occurring from 1879 to 2059. The sixth book, however, predicts the future—a future that lies on the pages resting in Finn's hands. As he struggles with his sanity in trying to determine who wrote the books, who gave him the books—and more importantly, why they gave him the books—Finn discovers a difficult truth.