Cogs of Time: Volume 1

by Laura M. Drake, Madison Salters (Editor), Eda (Illustrator)

Kyra Annandale can Slip through time, traveling to the past for short periods. If only she could slip away from her ambitious, overprotective father. Thanks to him, she has steam-powered server bots instead of friends, knife lessons instead of floral arrangement lessons, and a fiancé who will further Papá’s political career instead of one who loves her. Except everything changes the night of her engagement party when she Slips into the recent past and witnesses a stranger’s murder. Going against her father’s reminders to never trust law enforcement, Kyra secretly reports what she saw to the Iron Watch. There she meets the alluring detective Hiram Atwood. As the clock ticks on, Kyra struggles to hide her involvement with the case—and her growing feelings for Hiram—from her father and fiancé. She and Hiram uncover a string of murders as Kyra Slips through time to uncover the serial killer’s plans. Can Kyra escape her destiny as a pawn, discover the secrets of the killer and her own family, and grab on to happiness before it’s pulled away forever?

A First Prize winner in the first-ever J-Novel Club Original LN Contest!

Genres: Fantasy

319 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 19, 2025

About the author

My name is Laura M. Drake, and I'm the youngest of five kids. I grew up in Arkansas and moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University. After spending three summers abroad in France, Japan, and China, I graduated with a degree in Elementary Education and began teaching 4th grade near Salt Lake City. A few years later I moved back to Japan to fulfill a life-long dream of living there. When Covid got bad, I came back to America and have been living in Arkansas and writing full-time ever since. I'll soon be moving to UT and look forward to the new adventures that await me there. When I'm not writing (which isn't very often--I should probably get a life haha) I love playing ultimate frisbee, board games, writing in my journal, and spending time with friends and family.

Reviews

[Riri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This doesn’t read like a light novel. It reads like a YA book cosplaying as one. It even has the main character eyeing the male lead’s tanned, muscular forearm, which is very much a Western novel thing and not something you’d find often in light novels.

Like wood from a tree, strong and reliable. He was exactly how a detective should be, unlike the rest of the useless Blue Capes who’d ignored me.

A tree with impressive biceps and a muscular stomach.

Girl. You just met him like five seconds ago. Get a grip.

I’m usually a lot more lenient on light novel-style fanservice, but this doesn’t feel like that. It feels like one of those romantasy books that has so much thirst it distracts from the plot. The artworks, beautiful as they are, don’t match the story either. Many times it was stated that Kyra is wearing a tunic and leather pants, but the illustration shows her in a frilly dress. One of them even has her riding Hiram’s hovercraft in that same dress. For a book that spends so much time describing aesthetics, it’s weird that nobody told the artist to draw the correct outfit.

The concept of slipping through time is interesting, but not enough for me to put up with the rest. Between the long-winded writing, the flat characters, the uninspired worldbuilding, the instant attraction, and the whole relationship drama, there’s just way too much bloat. The murder mystery is bland too. The victims are strangers so there’s zero emotional investment, and everything else just takes away from it.