Jackson Meyer
Jackson is the first-person narrator and protagonist of the novel. From the outside, he appears to be just a typical young college student trying to balance study, romance, and partying. What those looking in from the outside cannot possibly know or even imagine is that he is also capable of traveling through time. This ability proceeds to further complicate being a typical college kid and it will have especially significant consequences for his romantic life.
Holly Flynn
Jackson’s girlfriend Holly also attends NYU and, from the outside, appears remarkably typical. What makes the romance between these two seemingly normal students something much weirder than normal is that by virtue of Jackson’s ability leap through time, Holly appears as multiple versions of herself. When present-day version of Holly is shot (this occurs early in the narrative so is not really a spoiler) Jackson is sent back in time where he finds a version of Holly who has yet to actually meet him. This is the sort of relationship that actually requires “it’s complicated” in order to fully explain things.
Kevin Meyer
Jackson’s father, Kevin, is the CEO of a Big Pharma outfit that, like most Big Pharma outfits, is doing very well financially. As it turns out, however, the family Meyer has much more going for it than selling drugs at inflated prices. It just turns out that Jackson’s time traveling abilities are due to possessing an exceedingly rare “Tempus gene” which has been allowing time travelers to exist for centuries. Jackson also learns from his father that he was genetically engineered to serve this purpose.
Thomas
The enigmatic singularly named mysterious figure lurking in the shadows for much of the first half of the book is Thomas. The antagonists of the novel are a group of people bearing the extremely unfortunate name Enemies of Time. Jackson jokingly wonders whether Thomas qualifies as the CEO of this group, but he is actually not far off. It is not the business position of Thomas that makes him a danger, however, it is his place within the construct of traveling through time. That place is one which takes full advantage of the existential potential of time travel: repeating an event in time until its history becomes the one most desired.
