Book overview A.G. Riddle

Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle – Book Summary & Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Quick Facts

Field Detail
Author A.G. Riddle
Publication year 2022
Genre Science fiction thriller
Setting Near-future Absolom City; the Late Triassic/Pangea; 2008 Stanford; 2015 San Francisco; the 1852 California Trail
Narrator Third-person limited, alternating between Sam Anderson's exile in the deep past and Adeline Anderson's investigation across time
Series Standalone (not established as part of a series)

Short Summary

Lost in Time follows two interlocking quests. Sam Anderson, co-inventor of the Absolom time machine, confesses to a murder he did not commit to protect his daughter Adeline, and is exiled to the Late Triassic. Stranded on Pangea, Sam must survive volcanic eruptions, predators, starvation, and isolation while holding onto hope. Meanwhile, Adeline investigates Nora Thomas's death, unaware that the woman mentoring her, Daniele Danneros, is actually her older self. Decades hidden inside that identity let Adeline help found Absolom, manipulate events across time, and eventually assemble the pieces needed to rescue her father. The answers lead to a startling revelation: Nora was not murdered by a killer from the present, but replaced with a Syntran replica so the timeline could unfold exactly as it had to.

Full Summary

The novel opens with a front-matter page listing A.G. Riddle's earlier works, then moves into the story proper. On the anniversary of his wife Sarah's death, Sam Anderson visits her grave with his children, Adeline and Ryan. The family moment is shattered when Absolom City police drones and officers surround them. Sam is shot with a small metal disc and wakes in custody, charged with the murder of Dr. Nora Thomas. Detectives Billings and Holloway show surveillance footage that places Sam and Adeline at Nora's home near the time of death. Sam admits he had been secretly romantically involved with Nora. His attorneys rush in, but the legal situation quickly worsens: police accuse Adeline of killing Nora, presenting a knife with her prints and Nora's blood. Sam realizes the evidence is a frame-up. To stop the investigation from consuming his daughter, he decides to confess to the murder himself and accept exile through Absolom.

Adeline is released into the care of Sam's friend Daniele Danneros. Sam, meanwhile, is prepared for departure at a Nevada facility. In the padded cell, he receives visits from the Absolom founders. Elliott argues with him, Constance weeps, Hiro offers to sabotage the machine, and Daniele drills him on survival tactics for the ancient world. Adeline visits through glass and begs him to let her investigate. They strike a deal: she will have two years to try to right the wrong. Sam then reveals a foundational secret: the Absolom Six—Sam, Elliott, Nora, Hiro, Constance, and Daniele—never intended Absolom to be a time machine. The company started as a financial fraud built on false promises about teleportation, and the founders were as surprised as anyone when genuine time displacement emerged from their research.

Sam is drugged, placed in the Absolom chamber, and arrives in the Late Triassic during a storm, plunging into the Panthalassa Ocean. He survives by floating, drinking rainwater, and swimming toward a distant coastline that he eventually reaches. His ordeal on Pangea includes hunger, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, giant crocodiles, stampeding dinosaurs, and a hostile encounter with a scarred Absolom prisoner who attacks him. During these trials, Sam uses metal pins taken from dead prisoners as a locator system. He eventually digs up a wristband-like device, turns its dial, and is pulled out of the Triassic.

In the parallel narrative, Adeline begins living with Daniele and secretly investigates the Absolom founders. She discovers Constance's hidden room of death-date photographs, tracks Hiro to a Las Vegas house, and uncovers Elliott's basement surveillance shrine devoted to his son Charlie's final days. Elliott and Hiro eventually explain Absolom Two: a new system that can target the user's own universe, but only by obeying strict causality rules. Changing the past of one's own timeline would destroy reality; however, because Sam exists in a different branched timeline, his past can be altered without harm. The team develops a plan to send a recall ring to Sam by implanting ring fragments in Absolom prisoners and transmitting them to his location.

Meanwhile, older Adeline—the woman known as Daniele—has been quietly orchestrating everything. She reveals to the reader through her actions that she is Adeline, sent back to 2008 by her future self to ensure the timeline happens as it must. The unnamed driver's license that appears under disappearing ink on her intern badge names her as Daniele Danneros. She lives through the 2008 financial crisis, trades credit default swaps, watches her mother give birth to her own younger self at Stanford, undergoes plastic surgery, and eventually contacts Elliott to fund Absolom Sciences. Across more than a decade, she manages the founders' secrets: Hiro's gambling addiction, Constance's HIV, Elliott's grief over Charlie, and Sam's grief over Sarah.

As the night of Nora's murder approaches, older Adeline realizes she may be the one who must kill Nora to preserve the timeline. Instead, she and Sam travel to Nora's house and reveal the truth: the "murder" was staged using a Syntran replica body grown from Nora's DNA. The real Nora is alive. Elliott, who has arrived with a gun, understands he must return to the past to speak the words he never said to Charlie on the night Charlie died. Sam and Nora are sent to Absolom Island, a sanctuary built for rescuing people lost in time. The novel ends with Adeline and her team using Tesseract images from historical archives to identify rescue missions, beginning with Charlie, then Hana's father, and finally an 1852 pioneer family on the California Trail. In the epilogue, Adeline reunites with Nathan at a San Francisco startup event and invites him to join her rescue project.

Main Characters

  • Sam Anderson: Absolom co-inventor who confesses to Nora's murder to protect Adeline and is exiled to the Late Triassic, where his survival depends on hope.
  • Adeline Anderson / Daniele Danneros: Sam's daughter who spends decades under the alias Daniele, helping found Absolom and shaping the timeline to save her father and Nora.
  • Nora Thomas: Absolom founder and Sam's secret romantic partner whose apparent murder sets the plot in motion.
  • Elliott Lucas: Sam's friend and co-founder who secretly investigates Daniele and continues time-travel research in hopes of saving his son Charlie.
  • Hiro Sato: Absolom co-founder hiding a gambling addiction behind a trust; he later helps build and run rescue missions from Absolom Island.
  • Constance Niven: Absolom co-founder living with HIV who searches for people from her past, keeps a photograph-filled memorial room, and dies on Absolom Island.

Themes

  • Parental sacrifice: Sam gives up his freedom and his life to protect Adeline; Adeline gives up decades of her life to bring him home.
  • Causality and fixing the past: Absolom Two's rules establish that changing one's own past risks destroying reality, but another timeline's past can be safely altered.
  • Identity and concealment: Adeline hides inside the Daniele Danneros identity while each Absolom founder keeps dangerous secrets from the others.
  • Survival and hope: Sam endures starvation, storms, predators, and volcanic catastrophe, sustained by the image of seeing his family again.
  • Grief, guilt, and healing: Characters process the deaths of Sarah, Charlie, and Constance through confession, memory, and the second chances offered by Absolom Island.

Symbols

  • The Absolom machine: Time travel functions as both a punishment that strands prisoners in the past and a rescue tool that lets Adeline bring people home.
  • The photomosaic quilt: First connected to Sarah and later completed by Adeline, the quilt represents memory, missing pieces of a life, and the attempt to mend a fractured family history.
  • Diamond earrings and the disappearing-ink driver's license: These objects carry Adeline through 2008 and link her to Nathan, Shen Photo, and the forged Daniele identity she must inhabit.
  • The recall ring: Too large to send whole, the ring is split into pieces carried by Absolom prisoners and later assembled by Sam so the team can pull him home.

Ending Overview

The final chapters reveal that Nora Thomas never died. Her "death" was staged with a Syntran replica body, so the timeline would proceed exactly as history required. Adeline and Sam travel back to Nora's house, remove the replica, and send Sam and Nora to Absolom Island. Adeline then converts Absolom Island into a rescue center, using a data-sharing agreement with governments to search historical photos and videos for evidence of where her team has already appeared. The rescue missions recover Charlie, Hana's father, and an 1852 pioneer family. In the epilogue, Adeline finds Nathan again and asks him to join her project. Explore the full ending explained.

Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

Chapter Summary
Ch. 1 – By A.G. Riddle Front-matter page listing the author's previous works and signaling a standalone novel.
Ch. 2 – One Sam visits Sarah's grave with Adeline and Ryan; police drones surround them and Sam is shot with a disc.
Ch. 3 – Two Sam wakes under arrest for Nora Thomas's murder; Elliott and Tom Morris arrive as lawyers.
Ch. 4 – Three Adeline is questioned about her visit to Nora and her undisclosed reason for the meeting.
Ch. 5 – Four Sam reveals his secret relationship with Nora and the blackmail that exposed it; he calls the founders "frauds."
Ch. 6 – Five Police charge Sam as an accessory and show evidence framing Adeline; Sam demands to see her.
Ch. 7 – Six Adeline sobs in Sam's arms; Sam suspects Nora's opposition to an Absolom breakthrough is the motive.
Ch. 8 – Seven Founders discuss alibis; Sam finds a hidden envelope under the table.
Ch. 9 – Eight The note demands Sam confess by 5 p.m. or evidence of Adeline's guilt will be sent to police.
Ch. 10 – Nine Victor Levy plans a fear-based defense; Sam abruptly decides to confess and accept Absolom.
Ch. 11 – Ten Adeline remains confined; Sam asks Amanda to take guardianship and finalizes his confession.
Ch. 12 – Eleven Sam asks Daniele to be guardian of Adeline and Ryan; she makes him promise to preserve his will to live.
Ch. 13 – Twelve Adeline is released into Daniele's care; Sam is transported to the Absolom departure facility.
Ch. 14 – Thirteen Sam receives visitors and survival training; Adeline writes a suspect list that includes Daniele.
Ch. 15 – Fourteen Adeline and Sam make a two-year deal; Sam reveals the Absolom Six are frauds.
Ch. 16 – Fifteen Sam explains Absolom's origin as a financial fraud and the accidental discovery of time displacement.
Ch. 17 – Sixteen Founders make confessions; Sam is drugged, placed in the Absolom chamber, and sent into the past.
Ch. 18 – Seventeen Sam arrives in the Late Triassic and nearly drowns in the ocean before using his outfit as a float.
Ch. 19 – Eighteen Adeline watches her father's exile; Daniele gives her surveillance devices and an electroshock weapon.
Ch. 20 – Nineteen Sam drifts at sea, remembering Elliott and Sarah, and finds no land at dawn.
Ch. 21 – Twenty Adeline visits Constance with hidden listening devices and breaks down in the powder room.
Ch. 22 – Twenty-One Sam survives thirst and sunburn; a flashback reveals the venture-capital lie; he sights the coast of Pangea.
Ch. 23 – Twenty-Two Adeline plants bugs in Constance's home and discovers a hidden room of death-date photos.
Ch. 24 – Twenty-Three Sam swims toward shore, remembering helping Elliott search for Charlie.
Ch. 25 – Twenty-Four Adeline plants a tracker on Hiro's phone and overhears the trio planning something for Sam.
Ch. 26 – Twenty-Five Sam washes ashore on Pangea and finds a sweater left by another Absolom prisoner.
Ch. 27 – Twenty-Six Daniele teaches Adeline finance; Adeline learns her father's dividend and links Hiro to Molosba LLC.
Ch. 28 – Twenty-Seven Sam encounters a theropod, eats ginkgo-like pods, vomits, and hides from a creature.
Ch. 29 – Twenty-Eight Adeline finds Elliott's secret room of Charlie surveillance footage; Elliott locks the door.
Ch. 30 – Twenty-Nine Sam builds fire and tools; a scarred old man in an Absolom tank top steps out of the trees.
Ch. 31 – Thirty Elliott confronts Adeline about Daniele; Adeline tracks Hiro to Death Valley.
Ch. 32 – Thirty-One Sam fights and kills an Absolom prisoner; an earthquake collapses his cave shelter.
Ch. 33 – Thirty-Two Adeline films a Death Valley dig and overhears Daniele threatening a senator.
Ch. 34 – Thirty-Three Sam finds ASI tracking pins in the dead prisoner and flees a dinosaur stampede.
Ch. 35 – Thirty-Four Daniele explains causality and the temporal event horizon; Adeline breaks into Hiro's Las Vegas house.
Ch. 36 – Thirty-Five Sam escapes a stampede and eruption; giant crocs charge him.
Ch. 37 – Thirty-Six Hiro reveals his gambling addiction and an underground casino; Elliott accuses Daniele of loving Sam.
Ch. 38 – Thirty-Seven Sam hides behind a skeleton while a herd stampede and volcanic bombs nearly kill him.
Ch. 39 – Thirty-Eight Elliott explains Absolom Two, tuning bars, the causality loop, and the 25-gram transmission limit.
Ch. 40 – Thirty-Nine Sam discovers the Absolom pins are locators and reflects on his life before and after Sarah's death.
Ch. 41 – Forty Adeline learns the recall-ring plan and that Daniele may kill Nora in the future, not the past.
Ch. 42 – Forty-One Sam uses the pins to navigate and remembers a walk on Tower Bridge with Nora.
Ch. 43 – Forty-Two Adeline plants surveillance on Daniele, then is drugged and sent through Absolom Two to 2008.
Ch. 44 – Forty-Three Sam finds a round metal device, connects the pins into a wristband, and turns the dial.
Ch. 45 – Forty-Four Adeline lands at Stanford in 2008 and meets her pregnant mother, Sarah.
Ch. 46 – Forty-Five Adeline discovers the disappearing ink on her badge forms a Daniele Danneros driver's license.
Ch. 47 – Forty-Six Adeline realizes she is Daniele, sells the earrings, and visits Shen Photo to arrange a fake ID.
Ch. 48 – Forty-Seven Adeline settles near campus and assists her mother while guarding her identity.
Ch. 49 – Forty-Eight A year later, Adeline profits from the financial crisis and grows close to her mother.
Ch. 50 – Forty-Nine Adeline helps prepare for her mother's baby, witnesses her own birth, and leaves before Sam arrives.
Ch. 51 – Fifty Adeline studies quantum physics, undergoes plastic surgery in 2014, and founds San Andreas Capital.
Ch. 52 – Fifty-One In 2015, Adeline meets Nathan Hill and later emails Elliott about his quantum web research.
Ch. 53 – Fifty-Two Adeline contacts Elliott as Daniele; Nathan gifts her the diamond earrings.
Ch. 54 – Fifty-Three Adeline meets the five Absolom founders, plans an island refuge, and learns Hiro and Constance's secrets.
Ch. 55 – Fifty-Four Adeline observes the founders' hidden struggles and sews with her dying mother.
Ch. 56 – Fifty-Five Elliott proves the many-worlds interpretation; her mother works on a three-panel photomosaic quilt.
Ch. 57 – Fifty-Six Nora seeks connection; the team debates using Absolom for nuclear waste and prisoner disposal.
Ch. 58 – Fifty-Seven TESSERACT finds a photo of older Adeline in Stalingrad in 1942.
Ch. 59 – Fifty-Eight Nora builds an escape room; Adeline finds Charlie dead and Elliott delivers a shocking message.
Ch. 60 – Fifty-Nine Adeline finishes the quilt, Sarah dies, Absolom City is built, and Absolom Two begins.
Ch. 61 – Sixty Absolom's first exiles are broadcast; Nora explains the causality rule that unlocks Absolom Two.
Ch. 62 – Sixty-One Adeline prepares a replica of her childhood bedroom and listens as Nora describes her romance with Sam.
Ch. 63 – Sixty-Two Nora discovers the cameras; on the night of the murder, Adeline watches and cannot intervene.
Ch. 64 – Sixty-Three Elliott reveals the successful Absolom Two experiment; Adeline deduces Nora's killer came from the future.
Ch. 65 – Sixty-Four Adeline lies to detectives about the cameras and plants the "LOOK UNDER THE TABLE" note for Sam.
Ch. 66 – Sixty-Five Adeline pushes Sam toward a false confession, researches the Late Triassic, and gets Tesseract matches.
Ch. 67 – Sixty-Six Older Adeline plans Sam's rescue, realizes she may be the one who kills Nora, and prints the Daniele license.
Ch. 68 – Sixty-Seven Adeline watches her father's departure a second time and recognizes hope as Absolom's true lever.
Ch. 69 – Sixty-Eight The team breaks the recall ring into pieces; Adeline exhumes Nora's body and finds a missing piece.
Ch. 70 – Sixty-Nine Adeline sends her younger self to Stanford in 2008, revealing her identity to Hiro.
Ch. 71 – Seventy Adeline and Hiro pull Sam from Pangea, then send him back to the past; Adeline follows.
Ch. 72 – Seventy-One At Nora's house, a black bag reveals a Syntran replica; Adeline reveals Nora was never murdered.
Ch. 73 – Seventy-Two Elliott returns to the past to speak to Charlie; Adeline stages the crime scene and calls Sam "Dad."
Ch. 74 – Seventy-Three Adeline sends Sam and Nora to Absolom Island and reveals Tesseract photos proving Charlie can be saved.
Ch. 75 – Seventy-Four Sam and Nora rest on a Pacific island and agree to start over.
Ch. 76 – Seventy-Five Adeline places the note that triggers her own investigation and explains the Syntran plan to Hana.
Ch. 77 – Seventy-Six Adeline tells Ryan she is also Daniele; the family sails to Absolom Island.
Ch. 78 – Seventy-Seven The team sets up the Rescue Center; Constance dies and is buried by the sea.
Ch. 79 – Seventy-Eight Elliott and Adeline travel to Charlie's bedroom, stop his overdose, and bring him to the island.
Ch. 80 – Seventy-Nine Charlie recovers; Adeline and Hana rescue Hana's father from a downed Soviet plane in 1983.
Ch. 81 – Eighty Adeline and Sam travel to the 1852 California Trail to rescue a pioneer family.
Ch. 82 – Epilogue Adeline searches for Nathan, finds him at a startup event, and invites him to join her rescue project.
Ch. 83 – Author's Note Riddle thanks readers and shares that parts of the novel draw on his own life.
Ch. 84 – An Invitation from the Publisher Head of Zeus invites readers to join the publisher's community.

Common Questions

1. Who killed Nora Thomas in Lost in Time?

Nora was never actually killed. The death was staged using a Syntran replica body grown from her DNA. The real Nora survives and is sent to Absolom Island with Sam.

2. Is Daniele Danneros a real person?

No. Daniele Danneros is an identity created from the disappearing-ink driver's license that Adeline carries. It is the name Adeline uses when she travels back to 2008 and lives out decades of her life as an Absolom founder.

3. Why does Sam confess to Nora's murder?

He confesses because a blackmail note threatens to send evidence of Adeline's guilt to the police. Sam chooses exile through Absolom to protect his daughter from prosecution.

4. Can the past be changed in Lost in Time?

According to the novel's rules, changing the past of your own timeline would rupture causality and destroy reality. However, because Sam is stranded in a different branched timeline, that timeline's past can be changed without harming the present.

5. What is Absolom Two?

Absolom Two is an upgraded version of the Absolom machine that Elliott and Hiro develop. It can target a specific universe using entanglement, and it becomes the tool for sending objects and people to Sam's timeline and later for rescuing people lost in time.

6. How does Sam get rescued from the Late Triassic?

The team sends a recall ring to Sam by breaking it into pieces, implanting the fragments in Absolom prisoners, and transmitting them to his timeline. Sam assembles the pieces and uses the device to return.

7. Why does Adeline become Daniele?

Adeline is sent to 2008 by her own older self so she can live through the events that make Absolom possible. She hides inside the Daniele identity, builds Absolom Sciences, and eventually orchestrates the rescue of her father.

8. What is Absolom Island for?

Absolom Island is a sanctuary and rescue center where Adeline brings people who were lost in time, such as Charlie and Hana's father. It exists to give them a second chance at life.

Deeper Reading

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