In Time with You Summary: A YA Time-Loop Romance
In Time with You: A Second Chance That Costs Everything
Two weeks after her boyfriend Carter drowns in a river, Nieve Monroe believes the death is her fault.
She carries nightmares, missing memories, and the cold stares of Carter’s best friend Max, who seems certain she is to blame.
Then her grandmother unravels a year of stitches from Nieve’s handmade life blanket and burns the yarn.
Nieve wakes up on the first day of her freshman year at Suttleton Academy of Fine Arts ā with Carter alive and meeting her for the first time all over again.
Kristin Dwyer’s In Time with You follows a grieving art student who tries to rewrite the past, only to find that every choice reshapes her reality in ways she cannot control.
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TL;DR: The Short Version
- Premise: A college student travels back to the start of freshman year after her boyfriend’s drowning death, determined to prevent it.
- The twist: Small changes create “ripples” that rewrite her mother, her friendships, and her romantic history.
- The relationship: The boy she once dismissed as hostile becomes the person who truly sees her.
- What it’s about: Grief, guilt, inherited folk magic, art as honesty, and the difference between idealized romance and real love.
- Format: 40 chapters, first-person present tense, YA speculative romance.
Characters in This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Nieve Monroe | Art student and narrator who relives her freshman year after her family’s life blanket is unraveled and burned. |
| Max Emerson | Carter’s best friend, an upperclassman and art department teaching assistant who remembers alternate timelines through dreams. |
| Carter Henry Adams Delaney III | Nieve’s original boyfriend, a wealthy and popular student who serves as president of the Inheritance Committee. |
| Linden Monroe | Nieve’s cousin, roommate, and closest friend, who dates Carter in certain altered timelines. |
| Grandee | Nieve and Linden’s grandmother, who raises sheep, dyes wool, and spins life blankets at her Montreat farmhouse. |
| Alexandria “Alex” Moreno | Carter’s wealthy childhood friend and long-standing romantic interest. |
| Benji | A friend in the core group who works at the Big Dipper ice cream shop and writes poetry. |
| Kerrie Maeve Monroe | Nieve’s mother, whose career, location, and circumstances shift with each timeline reset. |
| Dr. Montgomery Adams (“Doc”) | The art professor at Suttleton who mentors Nieve and Max. |
| Logan, Lorelai, Luke, Rory | Grandee’s pet sheep, named after Gilmore Girls characters. |
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Spoilers ahead. This section covers the book’s plot, timeline shifts, and ending.
The novel opens at Carter Delaney’s funeral. Nieve Monroe stands at the back of the room, consumed by guilt and haunted by nightmares she cannot fully recall.
She remembers the river, but not the details of how Carter drowned while rescuing her.
Carter’s sister Aubrey, his best friend Max Emerson, and Nieve’s cousin Linden move through the service in their own states of shock. Max stares at Nieve with open fury, and no one in the room says what everyone seems to believe: that Carter died because of her.
Unable to return to classes, Nieve retreats to Grandee’s farmhouse in Montreat. Her grandmother keeps sheep named after Gilmore Girls characters and dyes hand-spun wool in a converted greenhouse.
In this family, each person receives a handmade “life blanket,” and every stitch holds a moment of the maker’s life. Grandee takes Nieve’s blanket, tears out a full year of stitches, and throws the yarn into the fireplace.
The next morning, Nieve wakes in her freshman dorm room at Suttleton Academy of Fine Arts. It is the first day of school, and the year has restarted.
She runs across campus searching for Carter and finds him alive, healthy, and completely unfamiliar with her. In this reset timeline, they have never met.
Nieve concludes that if Carter never falls in love with her, he will never follow her to the river. She decides to avoid him entirely, dropping shared activities and keeping her distance.
Suttleton itself is a small, tradition-bound arts college in the mountains. Students descended from the founders wear green, while members of the elite Inheritance Committee wear purple.
When Nieve consults Grandee in this past timeline, her grandmother explains how their family’s magic works. Time behaves like a train on tracks, always trying to recenter itself.
Small choices create small ripples. Drastic decisions drop boulders into time, fracturing reality and reassembling it into a new version of events.
Nieve tests this repeatedly, quitting the Inheritance Committee and skipping classes. Each time, the world rearranges around her, and the people she loves change with it.
Her mother Kerrie Maeve shifts across versions of reality. In one timeline she is a celebrated museum curator; in another she has been missing for years; in another she struggles with addiction; in another she lives quietly in France.
Dorm assignments, class schedules, and friendships reshuffle without warning. In several timelines, Linden begins dating Carter, leaving Nieve jealous and unsettled in ways she did not expect.
Meanwhile, Max Emerson keeps appearing in her life. He is the teaching assistant in her art studio class and her fellow volunteer at a celestial-themed ice cream shop.
In the original timeline, Max was cold and hostile toward her. In these repeated years, she discovers he is perceptive, empathetic, and serious about his own art.
He challenges her to draw emotional truth instead of pleasing images. He notices her panic attacks, respects her limits, and supports her when no one else does.
Over long hours in the studio and long drives in Grandee’s truck, Nieve’s feelings for Max grow. On New Year’s Eve, on a balcony overlooking a party at Carter’s estate, they kiss.
As the loops continue, Nieve uncovers a fact she had never allowed herself to see. Carter was never truly in love with her.
His heart had always belonged to Alexandria Moreno, his wealthy childhood friend. In the original timeline, Carter used grand gestures toward Nieve to fill the space Alex left behind when she became engaged to someone else.
Carter also took credit for small kindnesses he never performed. He claimed to have brewed morning coffee for the group when Max had actually made it.
Nieve realizes her mission to save Carter was built on guilt rather than love. Time, she comes to understand, has been pushing Carter toward Alex all along.
The story builds toward the Founders Gala, a mandatory alumni showcase held in a glass solarium beside the river. The water is swollen and fast.
Nieve deliberately invites Alex to the gala, ensuring she and Carter must finally confront their feelings. Outside on the wet dock, an argument erupts between an intoxicated Carter, Alex, and Max.
In the scuffle, both Max and Carter fall from the dock into the rapids. Nieve watches in horror and understands what she actually wants.
She does not want to save her past with Carter. She wants to save Max. Despite a severe fear of water, she dives into the freezing river.
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She fights the current, grabs Max’s hand, and refuses to release him. Max pushes her onto a floating log, and Carter, who has scrambled onto the lower bank, pulls them both to safety.
Everyone survives the river except Logan, Grandee’s sheep, who wandered into the water during the chaos and drowned. The sacrifice settles the debt time demanded.
Afterward, Max confesses that he has been dreaming of every alternate timeline. In every version of reality, he says, he was in love with Nieve and was always chasing after her.
With the timeline finally stable, reality settles. Carter and Alex reunite and begin an honest relationship, and Linden finds her own independence.
At a memorial service for Logan at the farmhouse, Grandee delivers a eulogy about tearing out old choices and starting new. Nieve lets go of her grief and embraces her love for Max.
She understands at last that time did not give her a second chance to repair her past with Carter. It gave her the chance to find herself and a future with Max.
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Books Like In Time with You
- Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver: A YA novel built on a repeating day, where the protagonist reconsiders her relationships and her own behavior.
- If He Had Been with Me by Laura Nowlin: An emotional YA story about a long friendship, unspoken feelings, and the aftermath of a tragic loss.
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig: A parallel-life narrative in which a protagonist explores alternate versions of her choices and learns to release regret.
- In Some Other Life by Jessica Brody: A “what-if” parallel-universe YA novel about a different school, different friends, and a different romance.
- Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer: Dwyer’s companion YA novel, sharing her emotional intensity, character chemistry, and second-chance themes.
Book Details at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: Young Adult Romance / Speculative Fiction / Magical Realism (Time-Loop Romance)
- Core Narrative Tropes: Time loop, relived college year, grumpy-and-sunshine pairing, best friend’s girlfriend, cottagecore folk magic, life blankets, second-chance fate avoidance
- Tone & Atmosphere: Bittersweet, introspective, nostalgic, cozy-gothic, whimsical
- Primary Conflict: Internal ā Nieve’s guilt, grief, and lost sense of identity after Carter’s death. External ā time’s tendency to fracture and rewrite reality whenever she manipulates fate.
- Pacing Style: Non-linear and loop-based, opening in a melancholic funeral setting, escalating through timeline shifts, and closing with a fast-paced river climax
- ISBN: 978-1250355133 (ISBN-10: 1250355133)
- Pages: 384
- Book Structure: 40 chapters, first-person present-tense narration from Nieve Monroe’s perspective
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