Cover Crush: Costumes for Time Travelers by A.R. Capetta

I love a cover that knows exactly what kind of story it’s telling, and Costumes for Time Travelers delivers that in every thread and fold. There’s movement, intimacy, and a dreamy palette that feels like stepping through a curtain into another time, or maybe all times at once.

The details are what got me: the patchwork, the ribboned fabric, the warm light filtering in like magic. It doesn’t scream “time travel,” and that’s kind of the point; it’s quiet, theatrical, and personal. You can tell this is a story about more than jumping through history. It looks like a love story, a story about identity, maybe even reinvention. And knowing A.R. Capetta’s work, I trust it’ll be weird in the best way.

This one feels like it’s going to be both soft and sharp, and I’m in.

Costumes for Time Travelers

Published by: Candlewick Press
on May 27, 2025
Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Young Adult
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Calisto and Fawkes are drawn to each other for the first time, again, as they travel from when to when to take on a threat to all they hold dear in this lyrical and playful fantasy from award-winning author A. R. Capetta.

Anyone who has hiked through time knows the town of Pocket. It’s the place travelers first reach after they stumble away from their hometime, passing through on their way to any other when. To Calisto, Pocket is home. They love their grandmother’s shop, which is filled with clothes from every era that are used to make costumes for time travelers. Calisto has no intention of traveling—it’s too dangerous. For Fawkes, traveling is life. He put on time boots when he was young and has been stumbling through eras ever since. When he floats into Pocket, Calisto meets him for the first time, though Fawkes has seen Calisto—in glimpses of what hasn’t happened yet. He’s also seen the villains chasing them both. Now Calisto and Fawkes must rush—from Shakespeare’s London to ancient Crete to California on the eve of a millennium—to save Pocket, and travelers, from being erased. From the Lambda Literary Award–winning author of The Heartbreak Bakery comes a fairy-tale romance that weaves in and out of time, from kiss to kiss and costume to costume.