Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father, Henry DeTamble, Alba is an involuntary time traveler: she slips unpredictably through decades, carrying the weight of futures she can’t understand and pasts she cannot change. Yet she strives to maintain a normal life: as a gifted violinist, Alba finds refuge in her music, as well as her tight-knit community of rebels, artists, and activists who fight against the forces of a world teetering on the edge of collapse.

As she dips in and out of an increasingly fraught and unstable future, Alba is haunted by secrets she must keep from those she loves most, including Zach, her safe, supportive anchor in the chaos. Her journey takes her from the riots of Chicago’s streets to the eerie refuge of the Yellow House – where she meets Oliver, a fellow time traveler and handsome musician – to the digital corridors of the Museum of Lost Souls, a virtual sanctuary of forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating the museum is Isadora, Alba’s secretive stepsister and an increasingly unsettling presence in their family – whose fate may be intertwined with Alba’s in more dangerous ways than she knows.

At once intimate and sweeping, Life Out of Order is a kaleidoscopic tale of love, resilience, and hope amid our fractured world where time itself is the greatest adversary. With every leap through the years, Alba is forced to reckon with the choices that define her, the people she cannot let go of, and the question that haunts every time traveler: can you ever truly belong to the present?