Not many authors can pull off dual timelines without losing the reader somewhere in the middle. Krysten Coldsmith not only pulls it off, she makes it look effortless. Forgotten Magic moves between present day America and 1554 Tudor England with a rhythm that feels completely natural, and every time the story shifts between centuries you feel the weight of one timeline pressing into the other.
The present day setting is a Renaissance fair circuit in the American Midwest, which is already one of the most creative and underused settings in young adult fiction. There is something about the fair that works perfectly for this story. It is a world that exists slightly outside of ordinary life, where history and performance and community all blur together, and where it is not entirely strange for the past to feel very close.
Ana lives and travels with her Romani family, performing at fairs across the country. She is a dancer, a swordswoman, and a girl who has been having dreams she cannot explain since she can remember. When she meets Tigan at the new fair site, she dismisses the pull she feels toward him. She has enough to deal with. Her sixteenth birthday is approaching, which in Romani tradition means her elemental affinity is about to awaken. She does not have time for a Gaje boy with blue eyes and a charming smile.
But the story has other plans for both of them.
The 1554 timeline is where the book really opens up. Liliana, Ana’s past self, is a fifteen year old Romani dancer navigating a London that wants her people gone. Queen Mary’s Egyptian Act has declared the Romani illegal on English soil, and the danger is not distant or political. It is immediate and personal and devastating. Watching Ana piece together what happened to Liliana, to Merival, to little Kizzy, to Kezia, is genuinely heartbreaking in the best possible way.
What makes the dual timeline work so well is that the present and the past are not just parallel. They are in conversation. Every choice Ana makes in the present echoes into 1554, and every tragedy from the past cast a shadow over who she is today. The curse connecting her and Tigan is not just a plot device. It is the emotional spine of the entire story.
By the time the two timelines fully collide, you will not be reading so much as holding your breath.
This is the kind of storytelling that stays with you. Rich and layered and deeply felt, Forgotten Magic is a book that earns every emotion it asks of you.
Available now on Amazon and on Krysten Coldsmith’s official website. If you have been looking for your next obsession, this is it. Go get your copy now.