The Breaking of Time
J.J. Hebert
(Chronicles of the Arvynth, #1)
Publication date: November 25th 2025
Genres: Adult, Urban Fantasy
USA Today bestselling author J. J. Hebertâs brand-new urban fantasy series Chronicles of the Arvynth begins with The Breaking of Time, a novel about a devoted father whose desperate act to save his son fractures reality itself, awakening ancient magic and drawing him back into the path of an immortal order he once betrayed, where love, time, and silence collide in a race against eternity.
Mariel Hemingwayâs Book Club Selection (Best Urban Fantasy):
âThis novel is heartfelt, gripping, and memorable in all the best ways.â âMariel Hemingway, Bestselling Author & Oscar-Nominated Actress â â â â â
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ONE FATHERâS DESPERATE CHOICE FRACTURES TIME AND REALITY ITSELF.
To everyone around him, Daniel Ward is a mild-mannered accountant, devoted husband and father in a quiet New England suburb. But when his ten-year-old son chases a runaway soccer ball into the street, straight into the path of a speeding truck, Daniel does the impossible. He freezes time.
That single act of defiance exposes the secret heâs buried for decades. His magic awakens the ancient order he once betrayed, the Arvynth, a brotherhood of immortal sorcerers devoted to stillness and death, determined to silence the world.
As his carefully constructed life unravels, Daniel must protect his family while evading the brotherhood that hunts him. Every second he steals from time feeds the void that seeks to consume it, threatening not only the people he loves but reality itself.
Forced to choose between sacrifice and survival, Daniel discovers the truth: sometimes the loudest act of love is defiance.
The Breaking of Time is a race against eternity, a supernatural thriller that fuses urban fantasy and family drama in a story about the noise of life, the cost of power, and one fatherâs desperate fight to keep the world from falling silent.
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PRAISE FOR THE AWARD-WINNING URBAN FANTASY NOVEL THE BREAKING OF TIME:
âThis work will grab readersâ attention early as Hebert combines a diverse array of genresâfantasy, thriller, family road novel, and othersâinto a fast-paced, character-driven adventure⌠An exciting, tightly written tale of magic⌠Our verdict: Get it.â âKirkus Reviews
âThe Breaking of Time is meticulously crafted to explore themes of love, loss, redemption, and the struggle to balance personal desires with greater responsibilities.â âBookLife/Publishers Weekly (EDITORâS PICK)
âThe Breaking of Time: Chronicles of the Arvynth delivers cinematic urban fantasy that bridges generations, echoing the mythic gravity and moral weight of J.R.R. Tolkien while unfolding within a sleek, contemporary world⌠This is prestige fantasyâŚâ âJesse Metcalfe, Award-Winning Actor â â â â â
âAn immersive paranormal thriller that balances the rich worldbuilding and in-depth lore characteristic of fantasy fiction with the all-too-human dramas of identity, family, and the consequences of secrecy.â âIndependent Book Review (STARRED review)
âIf you like magic that feels tactile and real, or if you enjoy emotional stakes wrapped inside supernatural danger, this book will hit the spot.â âLiterary Titanâ â â â â (Gold Winner, Literary Titan Book Award: Fiction 2026)
âA smartly plotted supernatural thriller with a strong, charismatic protagonist to root for. A Wishing Shelf Recommended Read!â âThe Wishing Shelf â â â â â
âA winning blend of the supernatural and family adventure that crackles with heart and imagination.â âBestThrillers â â â â â
âA wonderfully complex dive into the world of fantasy⌠fast-paced, magicalâŚâ âReadersâ Favorite â â â â â
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble
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CHAPTER 1:
Iâve spent years pretending to be someone Iâm not.
The thought surfaces every morning when I shave, watching the face in the mirrorâa face that should be ancient, centuries-old, but instead shows only the faint creases of a man in his early forties. A single gray hair at my temple that Elena keeps threatening to pluck. The kind of weathering that comes from the lost sleep of parenthood and mortgage payments, not from outliving empires.
To everyone else, Iâm Daniel Wardâhusband, father, the sort of man who mows the lawn on Saturdays and forgets garbage day at least twice a month. My neighbors wave when Iâm pulling out the recycling bins, their smiles automatic and easy. Mrs. Dante from next door brings over her extra zucchini in late summer, always too much, always apologizing for the abundance. My coworkers at the accounting firm think Iâm polite but quiet, the guy who keeps his head down and never complains about the coffee. My wife calls me dependable, though sometimes I catch a question in her eyes, a flicker of something she canât quite name.
They all believe they know me.
They donât.
The other manâthe one buried under the flannel shirts and PTA meetingsâstill lurks somewhere beneath the surface. Heâs the one who used to speak to the unseen currents of the world, who could twist wind and time if he chose, who once stood in a circle of elders and made the sky itself hold its breath. But I buried him twenty years ago, the day I first saw Elena across a crowded bookstore, her laugh carrying over the ambient music like a bell I didnât know Iâd been waiting to hear. I traded his power for peace, his truth for love, his ancient purpose for the warm weight of a child falling asleep on my chest. I told myself I could be normal, that five hundred and forty-three years of magic could be folded up and tucked away like old photographs in a drawer.
I even started to believe it.
Today was supposed to be an ordinary day. Another quiet Saturday, nothing more. But when does anything ever go as planned?
It was one of those deceptive autumn afternoons where New England shows offâsun bright and warm on the skin, gilding everything gold. The kind of day that makes you forget winter is coming. Trees along Brookfield Lane shed their red and gold. They carpeted the sidewalks in layers of crimson and amber, crunching underfoot like breaking glass. The whole world felt fragile, caught between seasons, holding its breath before the fall.
I stood at the end of our driveway, sipping coffee that had long gone lukewarm. The mugâa Fatherâs Day gift from three years ago with âWorldâs Coolest Dadâ printed in fading lettersâhung heavy in my hand, forgotten. I was watching the Hendersonsâ cat stalk something invisible through their garden, its tail twitching with predatory focus, when Eli kicked his soccer ball a little too hard.
The sound was sharpâthat hollow thwack of synthetic leather against a ten-year-oldâs foot, released with more enthusiasm than aim. The ball bounced once, twice, then caught the curb at an angle and rolled into the street, picking up speed as it curved toward the stop sign at the corner.
Eli chased it before I could even form the word wait.
He wore his blue hoodieâthe one with the frayed cuffs he refused to let Elena fix, the white stripes on the sleeves already graying from too many washes, and one drawstring longer than the other because heâd chewed on it during homework the night before. His sneakers were grass-stained, laces trailing, his gangly ten-year-old body a blur of elbows and knees as he ran with a reckless abandon only children possess. The kind of innocence that comes from not yet understanding that the world has teeth.
The ball slipped into the road, rolling lazily toward the middle of the lane. Eli followed without looking, without thinking, his whole world narrowed to that sphere of black and white pentagons.
And then I heard it.
An approaching car. Not the gentle whisper of someone cruising through the neighborhood, but the aggressive growl of speedâtoo much speed for a residential street. A truck came around the bend far too fast. The driver probably wasnât paying attention, likely glancing at his phone or reaching for something on the passenger seat, thinking about anything but the quiet street where children played.
I felt my stomach drop, that vertiginous lurch that comes not from falling but from watching someone you love step off the edge.
The coffee mug slipped from my fingers, hitting the driveway with a dull crack. Coffee spread across the concrete in a dark stain that looked too much like blood.
âEli!â I shouted. âLook out!â
He didnât hear. The wind was wrong, carrying sound away from him, and he was bent over the ball now, just a few feet from the centerline, small hands reaching down to scoop it up. His hood had fallen back, revealing the stubborn cowlick at his crown that Elena had tried to smooth down this morningâthe same stubborn swirl of hair Iâd seen on Jonas five hundred years ago.
The driver saw him at the last minuteâI could see the panic flash across his face through the windshield, his mouth opening in what might have been a shout or a curse. He tried to brakeâthe nose of the truck dipped as he slammed his foot downâbut there wasnât enough distance, not enough time.
The laws of physics are beautiful and merciless. Mass times velocity. Momentum conserved. A two-ton truck traveling at forty miles per hour needs approximately ninety feet to stop.
My son was thirty feet away.
The math was simple. The outcome inevitable.
Everything inside me fractured.
The years Iâd spent pretending to be ordinaryâgone, shattered like ice on pavement. The quiet life, the safe life, the carefully constructed fiction of Daniel Ward, the accountantâgone. Twenty years of restraint, of biting my tongue when the old words tried to surface, of letting the magic sleep dormant in my bonesâall of it evaporated in the space between heartbeats.
My son was about to die, and the man Iâd been pretending to be had no way to stop it.
The other manâthe buried oneâcould.
It began as a vibration in my chest, not painful but insistent, like thunder humming before a storm breaks or the first tremor before an earthquake tears the world open. The sensation spread through my ribcage, resonating in the hollow spaces between bone, traveling down into my gut. My hands began to tingle, then burn, the old pathways of power waking, remembering their purpose.
The world thinned around me, like reality itself was just a membrane stretched too tight, waiting for permission to stop turning.
My vision sharpened with supernatural clarityâI could see each particle of dust hanging in the light, suspended like tiny stars. I could see the individual vibrations in the air, the way sound moves in waves, the molecular dance of oxygen and nitrogen. I could see the truckâs trajectory mapped out in lines of probability, see the exact angle at which metal would meet flesh, see the moment my son would stop being my son and become a memory, a ghost, another name added to the long list of those Iâd failed to save.
The spell came unbidden to my lips, rising from a place deeper than thought, older than intention.
The syllables were hot and metallic on my tongue, tasting of copper and electricity, of blood and starlight. They werenât Englishâwerenât any language spoken in many, many years.
They were Arvynth.
The old words.
The ones Iâd sworn Iâd never speak again.
âFractura Tempora.â
The sound tore through the air like a blade through fabric, like lightning splitting the sky, like the world itself being unzipped at the seams.
And reality obeyed.
Author Bio:
J. J. Hebert is the #1 Amazon, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of eight books, including his acclaimed debut Unconventional and The Backwards K, which, according to Newsweek, is currently in development for film adaptation. His latest #1 bestsellers, both published in 2025, are The Breaking of Time: Chronicles of the Arvynth and The Hands-On Author: Taking Control of Your Book Marketing Journey. A lifelong New England resident, Hebert frequently weaves the regionâs landscapes and atmosphere into his storytelling. He is also the award-winning CEO and Founder of MindStir Media, a leading hybrid book publisher. Join his community of over 2 million followers across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) @authorjjhebert.
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