“Across Time and Starlight” by Alessandro Candotti

Across Time and Starlight

Alessandro Candotti
River Grove Books (2025)
ISBN:  978-1632998439
Reviewed by Terri Stepek for Reader Views (08/2026)

Across Time and Starlight by Alessandro Candotti is as complex and detail-oriented as the concept of time travel itself.  Yet it’s as simple as boy meets girl.  Andreas meets the literal girl of his dreams and spends the rest of his life finding a way for them to inhabit the same space and time without destroying the world.

Saya is a faerie and a slave who has lost her wings:  wings given to her by the boy of her (literal) dreams.  She has only a dim recollection of him, having lost virtually all memory of him during the Dreaming.  As residents of the Floating Lands, all citizens must pay a “tax” by allowing their dreams to be taken.  It is said these dreams keep their home floating in the clouds, away from danger.  She has been tasked with finding the time traveler rumored to have appeared, as they believe his appearance will bring about the end of the world.

Andreas didn’t start out to be a time traveler, but that’s for the author to tell you.  He started as a child feeling abandoned and wanting to understand what happened to his father, an explorer who never returned home.  Now he’s a lovesick boy looking for the girl he found once.  He doesn’t even know her name, but he knows he would move heaven and earth to find her again.  He would even travel through time to find her, something that is forbidden, as the prophecies foretell that only doom will result.

Alessandro Candotti has created an intricate storyline that literally transcends time and place.  Readers will find themselves catapulted from “Old Time” to “New Time” as the story unfolds from both Andreas’ and Saya’s perspectives.  This dual POV is essential.  It will, at times, feel heartbreaking, and other times it will fill readers with immense hope and joy.

One would think that alternating between different times and worlds while getting the tale from two perspectives would be enough of an interesting storyline.  But Candotti chose to create an even more in-depth tale by carefully revealing a treasure trove of symbolism throughout.  In fact, Across Time and Starlight could be considered a masterclass of deep symbolism, narrative dichotomy, and pure duality.  From the World Tree to the Black Tree, from changeling to faerie, from the First Mothers to the Marauders, it’s hard to take anything at face value.  At times it’s difficult to know if a given perspective is real or simply perceived (which some consider to be the same).  There is conflict in the legends, prophecies, and well-meaning advice given to each of the protagonists, allowing for even more consternation.  How does one know what to believe?  What to expect?  What to hope?

While there were admittedly moments when the chaos of time, location, and point of view felt nearly overwhelming, I came to realize that was the point.  The reader’s sense of disorder puts us firmly in the mindset of the characters as they attempt to get the world “right” again, to save humanity, to save the Floating Lands, or just to find each other again.

Meanwhile, Candotti delivers his tale with a nearly lyrical quality at times, as we learn about the locations, people, and prophecies of these worlds in a non-linear fashion.  It was easy to sink into his style, as savory and complex as the finest dishes, and allow him to surround me with the sensations of time and place.

Across Time and Starlight is a unique and stunning novel that many will want to read more than once. If you’re looking for a light beach read to enjoy in an afternoon, I can direct you to several other engaging novels.  However,  if you’re the type of reader who enjoys stopping to savor a fresh new symbolic angle, enjoys a bit of philosophy with your fantasy, delights in complex characters who seem to fight the fates at every turn, or finds immense pleasure in the bittersweet nature of star-crossed lovers, this read is for you.