Harper Wells: Renegade Timeline Officer

by Bethany Loveridge

Overview

Harper Wells finally gets a bedroom of her own, away from her annoying big brother. But on the first night in her new bed, she wakes up in the past and meets a troubled young girl named Edie.

Has befriending Edie changed the course of Australia's history?
Who does this strange time-travelling bed really belong to?
And what will happen when the rightful owner discovers Harper using it?

Harper is thrown into a world of time-travelling spies as she risks her life to find a missing girl before time runs out.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940180048608
Publisher:	Wombat Books
Publication date:	09/03/2025
Series:	Harper Wells
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Bethany Loveridge is an author-illustrator, film and art teacher, and lifelong bookworm. She’s an experienced presenter and educator and has written many learning resources and arts advocacy materials.

Bethany won the Chapter Books – Older Readers category at the CYA Conference in 2024 and was the winner of the Book Links Queensland Mentorship in 2023. She achieved third place in the Chapter Books – Younger Readers category at the CYA Conference in 2023 and was the winner of the ASA/Copyright Agency Award Mentorship in 2022. She was shortlisted for the Varuna Residential Fellowship in 2022 and the runner-up in the Pitch It! competition in 2021 as well as a recipient in the Kill Your Darlings Mentors Program in 2020.  

Bethany lives in Queensland, Australia with her trivia-loving husband and two creative kids. Like one scene in the book, her nonno really did raise tens of thousands of chickens in long tunnel sheds, and one of her favorite pastimes was climbing the mulberry tree (preferably in mulberry season).

Harper Wells: Renegade Timeline Officer is the first story in the Wollemi Trilogy and Bethany’s debut book. Find her at www.bethanyloveridge.com or hanging with the animals at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

Editorial Reviews

2025-07-19
An Australian preteen’s new bed enables her to travel into the past.

Twelve-year-old Harper Wells wants to grow up, something her dad has been reluctant to let her do ever since the disappearance of her mum six years ago. But after getting a new bed from a thrift shop, she’s transported back in time every time she falls asleep. With the help of Maximilian Durand, the boy sent to check up on her time wanderings, Harper learns about the World Office of Timeline Officials. The organization sends out Timeline Officers, all of whom are kids, to keep an eye on the past and make sure nothing changes, thus avoiding “catastrophic results further up the timeline.” The officers use Wollemi Beds (the Wollemi are trees)—and Harper’s bed actually belongs to Officer 42, who’s gone missing. WOTO will kill Harper if they find out she’s not really Officer 42. With Maximilian as her guide, she sets out to complete the case assigned to Officer 42, but as more Timeline Officers disappear, Harper must figure out for herself what the right thing to do is. This debut, a trilogy opener, dances around some big themes—class disparity, racism, and Australia’s difficult history—but this volume doesn’t explore them in depth. Still, readers looking for a fun, fast-paced time-travel series will be satisfied, and they’ll anticipate the many mysteries left for Harper to unravel. The leads are cued white.

Enjoyable and adventurous. (case file, author’s note)(Science fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews