This has got to be one of the weirdest books I've read in a while. I think the summary does it a disservice, because you read it thinking you're going in getting time travel! fantasy! medieval times! queer romance! dragons! and you DO get those things, but not in the way you'd expect. This isn't a traditional fantasy novel, and it's certainly not a romantasy. It's more... a rumination on the nature of modernity. The narration is stream of consciousness, and George spends a lot of the novel thinking about past events and relationships in his life, so much so that the first half of the novel you hardly see anything about the medieval setting he travels to.

Things I liked about it: Overall, the time travel mechanics and theory are well done. There are a few details that don't quite make sense, but it's largely internally and logically consistent. George's characterization is complex and well crafted. At first I thought he felt younger than his supposed mid-thirties, but then I realized he's peak millenial man-child (note: I am a xennial) who blames every horrible choice and decision he makes on other people. He's kind of terrible, more than a little disgusting, and extremely pathetic, but he does grow. Maybe not as much as you hope lol.

I'm not really a fan of stream of consciousness writing, so I'm trying not to rate on that since it's a stylistic thing. And all things considered, it was easy to read and follow. What I don't love is that this novel can't seem to figure out what its point is. Is it that the past and the present aren't that different? Is it steeped in misguided nostalgia for a 'simpler time' (a little)? George will marvel at how everyone he sees and meets just look like people, no different than the future he comes from, but then later he sees them as strange and brutal. There are a lot of moments where it feels like the author is trying really hard to say something profound, which never really works out that well. The love story isn't developed super well, mostly because George spends so much time thinking about himself. And after a long, slow start, the ending came a little abruptly, leaving some unanswered questions.

I struggled with what to rate this one. Did I enjoy it? Kind of? I certainly will be thinking about it for a while.

Thank you so much for approving my ARC request!

This was a read that I took a couple days to ruminate on. I was torn between more of a 3.5 star rating but I think with how detailed and introspective this novel was, it deserves the higher rating. We exist in George, our main character's head and while he did drive me crazy at times, I learned to appreciate his monologues and inner stream of consciousness. This was not an average time travel story and it surprised me because it felt deeper and more emotional rather than plot driven. I think this will be an acquired taste, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

What is George going to do?
This seems to be a question that has followed George for most of his adult life.
"This is the story of how one man lost everything, then still managed to find more things to lose. Job gone. Boyfriend gone. Gone like the sands of time itself."
What is George going to do?
In a moment of pure undiluted distress, being pulled in multiple impossible directions at once, George falls through time. Now all if those lost things are gone forever.
What is George going to do?
In the year 1300, rumors of dragons abound, but George knows dragons aren't real. Or so he believes. Until he meets one.


A deeply introspective storyline, surrounding the tale of George & The Dragon.

Star Rating: 3.5/5

The writing here is heavily stream-of-consciousness, which makes for a really fast read but also a somewhat uneven one. At times it’s clever and engaging, pulling you right into George’s head and other times it’s long-winded, repetitive, and kind of drowns out the plot. If you like spending almost an entire book inside a character’s inner monologue, this will work for you. If not, it’s going to be a bit tedious for you, as it was for me.

The core idea is actually really fun and unique, but I wish the plot had been built out a little more to match it. There are so many places the story could have gone that it only brushes against, and a tighter balance between style and story would have made it land harder. I did like the occasional surreal touches and the way the author wove in deeper themes, but, again, the narration style kept me from fully getting into the story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC copy!

This was definitely a much different read than anticipated. I thought this was going to be more adventure and fantasy- nope! Very stream of consciousness, in the past tense no less, and I honestly didn’t really like George kind of at all. It wasn’t awful, but wasn’t great. The ending was for sure a twist though.

It’s a first person stream of consciousness writing style, so if you don’t like that you probably won’t like this book.

I wasn’t expecting this to be as introspective as it was, that really threw me for a loop. It tells the story of how modernity has made us yearn for simpler times, while being unable to let go of the ease that modernity has brought us, that our misery is made by us, and can be undone by us.

An interesting read for sure.

Thank you net galley for the eARC.

Not your typical time-travel fantasy—George Falls Through Time is a queer, introspective spiral through heartbreak, burnout, and medieval chaos.
This definitely leans into literary fiction, this novel trades plot for emotional depth, following George’s anxious, self-deprecating narration as he stumbles from 2026 into 1300. I did have an issue with the writing; it was a bit too overdone and too much inner monologue.

However, the romance is subtle but resonant, the dragon surreal, and the message clear: misery doesn’t vanish with a change of scenery. It’s messy, thoughtful, and quietly profound.

This was a wild ride. I don't think I was expecting such an introspective book in what I thought was going to be an adventure time-traveling fantasy (a la Outlander). George Falls Through Time (GFTT) is much more about the titular character figuring out who he is, learning how to love and be loved, and figuring out what matters in life.

The main character George is a MESS and the narrative is a first-person stream of consciousness of all his thoughts, feelings, and fears. I struggled at times to wade through George's wallowing, but the other main character, Simon, was a helpful foil to balance out the George pity partying. I really liked Simon and wished we got more time with him and/or his perspective. Their relationship was not insta-love but the development of this relationship was not really on paper. How they came to love each other was less the point and there was more focus on what loving each other actually means.

The narrative jumps around from the "present" (in the past) to George's "past" life in the future and we readers really get to understand all of George's rough edges. GFTT diverges from the typical time-traveling story of how the future person handles and experiences the past, and George's experience of queerness in the past is quite interesting. The time-traveling mode itself was also very unique and a fun twist. The ending was open ended, which isn't always my favorite, but works in this book's favor.

I would recommend GFTT to someone who is looking for more literary fiction experience queer coming of age story than sci fi/fantasy. I appreciated the unique story and premise and never really knew what was going to happen next.

Thank you, William Morrow, for the arc!

A good time travel book has to deal with time winding around, and getting to the right place, no matter how many weird paraxodes there are. This one works, but it is a bit of a slog to get there, which is really the point of the story, so it all works.


George, who lives in Greenwich, London, has a total breakdown. He has been reduced to dog walking, because he has lost his job and his boyfriend, and the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And the next thing he knows, he is in 1300, in the time of Edward I. And if you say, hey what was going on then, because I only know about Henry the VIII, and Elizabeth the I, and stuff like that, then you are in the same boat as George. He can’t remember what was special about Edward I or his son, Edward II, so although he is from the future, he can’t tell the king or his son what will happen to them.


Oh and there is a dragon. George knows that is impossible. And yet he sees it.


I mostly liked the story, though George does moan on about both missing 2026 and being thankful he is in 1300.


I do love the dragon, who spits up artifacts from the future. I do also like how hard it was for George to communicate at first, because everyone would be speaking middle English. Bit like trying to read Chacer in the original. You can sort of understand it, when you hear it, but it mixes in bits of other languages too, the way English does to this day.


Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review. This book will be published on the 20th of January 2026

2 stars

This book ended up being really different from what I expected, and not in a positive way for me personally.

Mourning a recent breakup and trying to make ends meet, George is out walking far too many dogs when a single moment of chaos leaves him falling through time into medieval times. Fun premise, fun cover, fun title, so why is this book 90% stream of consciousness and overbearing literary devices? It's so distracting to have this potentially compelling plot going on but to be trapped viewing it through George's grating narration. George as a character also has little agency, so it's hard to get a grip of his character past the 'normal guy' archetype.

I don't know if this is a fault with the book or with the marketing, but this was definitely not for me.

Thank you to Ryan Collett and William Morrow for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

While I enjoyed the message of this novel, the writing style was not for me. There are lots of long winded sentences to portray George's anxiousness and confusion at his situation. This made it a bit tedious to read and I found George to be a bit too self-deprecating. I do think the idea behind this story is very interesting and the author did a good job creating a character that I think many people could relate to.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

3.5/5 stars

i came away from this book with a very mixed bag of feelings.

i flip flopped between finding the prose either witty and punchy or dully overwrought. there were certainly points while reading where the story felt like it was ambling aimlessly, which you'll understand is the point if you choose to pick this book up.

there are moments of great self-reflection to be found by the reader within george falls through time. i trudged through the book and took days-long breaks between reading because of how heavy the content can be. you can feel the crushing weight of george's cynicism and despair as he describes the emptiness of his modern life. but he feels just as empty and pointless while living in the past? this whole sensation that nothing matters and everything sucks definitely makes it hard to say whether or not i actually enjoyed the act of reading this book. there were several visceral moments where the prose felt like a weapon wielded against me as the reader, and i liked that a lot. but there were also moments where the stream-of-consciousness style was overdone to the point where my eyes were glazing over.

george falls through time certainly has a message about modernity and humanity. those of us caught up in the hustle and bustle of modern life may yearn for a simpler time, blinded by nostalgia for a point in history we've never experienced. but this book holds up a mirror to that desire, and reflects that your misery begins and ends with you, and cannot be solved by running away, for you'll only be toting it along with you.

it's a fine message, one that i think would resonate better with others than with me. i don't think i'm disillusioned enough with my life to tear open a hole in reality just yet. however, during those breaks between reading sessions, i did find myself frequently thinking about the pocket of time and space that i occupy. this book inspired self-reflection in me that not many other fiction novels have accomplished, so i can't disparage it too much. even if i didn't resonate completely by george's total disillusionment, it's still important to be more thoughtful about those methodical daily rituals we're so saturated in. there are so many instinctual social thoughts and habits we experience every day that i never even think about, self-consciousness and judgement and anxiety that are present even as i type this, because i know it'll be published online for anyone to read.

overall, i mostly liked it. there's an important message there that i'm sure all of us can benefit from in some way.

I quite enjoyed this book! I’m a sucker for time travel and modern characters ending up in Medieval/fantasy situations. And GFTT does a really good job navigating that particular sub genre without falling into the common issues of idealizing the past that you sometimes see in time travel romance. The past is just another place with its own pros and cons, and people have always just been people. The core relationship in this book is really sweet in how it builds over the course of the novel, surprising the reader in its intensity just as much as it surprises George.

I also love that this book doesn’t just completely ditch the fact that the main character is fully from another millennium, we get frequent flashbacks (Flashforwards?) to George’s life in 21st century London and get a real sense of how unhappy he was there, but also how reluctant he is to completely abandon the world he knows. It plays into what an emotional clusterfuck of a situation this is for him, giving the whole thing more of a sense of depth.

I will say, aside from the whole traveling through time thing, this does read more like a literary fiction book than a fantasy, which isn’t necessarily bad but it felt worth noting. There’s just more of a focus on internal angst and character-driven motivations rather than worldbuilding and situation-driven motivations. Not sure how to describe it but has more of that literary fiction flavoring to it.

All in all, 4/5 stars from me! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This was solid. I got confused sometimes but it was a really cute and unique story that I really enjoyed reading.

This was a surprise! A very pleasant one. I didn't expect to love this book as much as I did. It started slow, but once it geared up it never geared down. George Falls Through Time it's a wonderfully-written book.

Few stories manage to unravel in a way that brings their core vividly to life. And yet, "George Falls Through Time" moves with subtle shifts that lead us deeper into a raw, restless, and wounded interior.

Perhaps no word captures the novel’s world more fully than evolution. The story sheds itself quietly, evolving from hilarity to barbarity, from external adventure to internal anguish wrapped in skin, and touch, and breath—a need that knows no end.

We follow George, a man in his mid-thirties, caught in the frayed stillness of his life: an expired relationship, a faded career, the routine of walking dogs in Greenwich Park. Following a fraught moment that pulls at him from all sides, he wakes in the same place but seven centuries earlier, on the brink of the 14th century. His brushes with a world made wholly new strip the mind from the body, but it’s the lingering presence of the beautiful Simon that threatens to undo him fully.

Complexity unfolds in many forms here, from the personal to the metaphysical. It fuses with the narrative, smoking away apparent plainness to reveal the intricate fabric of life beneath. Modernity, perception, brutality, desire, and time stand on equal ground in the aftermath.

And while the beginning is steeped in humor that tickles modern-day inertia, its quick disappearance feels less like loss and more like...well, its evolution. The story gradually trades frivolity for something more embodied: a tension between mind and flesh—between being and existing—that deepens with each page.

Threaded through this is the pulse of longing and purpose half-formed. "George Falls Through Time" stitches wayward thought back to the slower rhythm of the body, both the protagonist's and, unavoidably, our own. As a result, the novel feels far too existential to be lighthearted. Its gravity swells gradually, leaving us with a building weight. Like George, we’re thrown into the disorder of history, memory, belonging, and a love so absolute it strips away certainty.

The bond between him and Simon, the novel’s delicate thread, sits just beneath the skin—achingly so. Each shift echoes movement more than it undoes odds and vulnerabilities laid bare. It's a cadence that proves relentless, rhythmic, and wholly untamable. This constant beat guides their connection from a glance held too long to something bottomless in the chest, and finally to a touch of recognition that flares into a thing much harder to contain—or sustain.

Beyond this intimate rhythm, the novel’s more surreal and existential elements—such as the mechanics of time travel—are carefully veiled beneath pantomime, grime, and cloth. Their absurdity is made fantastical to keep it from turning too raw, offering glimmers of meaning and connection that lift the story beyond genre or easy interpretation.

Collett’s writing threads all this together beautifully, with no thought or emotion left untouched by the hunger of language. Rather than standing apart from corporeality, "George Falls Through Time" becomes a kind of eulogy to what slips through the hands: a beauty that can’t be named, fully expressed, lived, or held. It lingers, leaving its trace in the quiet places we rarely notice until they ache.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

So...this book. It started slow for me. It took quite a bit of time to get into the meat of the story. This was mostly due to a lot of the book being spent on George's inner monologues or memory flashbacks. This persisted throughout the length of the book, but at least the story held a lot of interest for with with the introduction of Simon and their travels and the dragon. Simon was so sweet. I wanted so much more of him. He brought a softness and light that the story really benefitted from. I wish we had gotten so much more from him. His presence and the continued growth of his and George's relationship would have really helped with the reader's connection and emotional investment to the story.

I also really liked the conflict George with translating his modern day life and views to 1300. I felt his time traveling experience and reaction was quite unique compared to how time travel is typically handled in stories. And the concept of the dragon was also really fresh and inventive.

Another highlight for me was George's experience of a history being vastly different than what modern day teachings of history would like to paint history. Especially in terms of queerness and religion. Because no matter what, history can be washed to fit a country's ideal narrative, even though that squanders the idea of what history is supposed to be as a whole; which unbiased facts.

Ultimately, I enjoyed a lot of this book, but was also left wanting in pretty important areas. I wish we had spent less time on George's head and more time in his life, and the ending, unfortunately, left me quite dissatisfied.

“George Falls Through Time” by Ryan Collett offers a fresh take on the myth of Saint George. In this romantic and fantastical tale, we follow George, an unlucky-in-love, dog-walker who is unexpectedly transported back to London in the 1300s—the era of Piers Gaveston and King Edward.

By comparing and contrasting the past with the present, George gains clarity about what he wants out of life, particularly regarding relationships. AND if time travel wasn’t enough, George and his partner Simon find themselves tasked with vanquishing a dragon.

Collett skillfully weaves together a historical narrative filled with knights, fantasy, and humor, all while maintaining a romantic undertone. The novel is a heartfelt and humorous exploration of coming-of-age, learning about oneself, and understanding what—and who—we truly desire. It illustrates how unexpected life can be and emphasizes the importance of fighting for our future and for each other.

I really enjoyed this book. I believe fans of Stephen Rowley will appreciate the personal, humorous, and vulnerable narrative style. Additionally, those looking for a fun and unique read like Samantha Allen, will likely enjoy this heartfelt fantastical tale. Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.