Zorian is a young mage of modest origins, with skills slightly above average. He is a third-year student at the magical academy of Sioria. He is driven, but irritable, consumed by the desire to secure his own future and break free from the influence of his family, whom he doesn’t particularly like—because they favor his brothers. Therefore, he has no time for meaningless entertainment or for worrying about other people’s problems. As it turns out, he will have plenty of time.
On the eve of Sioria’s annual summer festival, he is killed and returned to the beginning of the month—right before he was going to board a train to Sioria. Trapped in a time loop with no clear end or exit, Zorian will have to look both inward and outward to unravel the mystery before him. He is forced to solve it, because the time loop was not made for him—and dangers are everywhere…
“Repetition is the mother of learning,” but first Zorian needs to make sure he survives in order to try again. In a world of magic, even a time traveler is not immune to those who want him harm.
Additional information: A little history. The author, a native of Croatia (whose name I have absolutely no idea how to correctly transliterate into Cyrillic), wrote this book in English, posting new chapters on the FictionPress site (an analogue of our Samizdat, apparently) for nine years, from October 2011 to February 2020, under the nickname nobody103. In parallel, an amateur translation into Russian was underway (quite good, in my amateur view). Not long ago, he managed to start selling his book (its first part) in edited form on Amazon (that’s where the cover is from; earlier only fanart was available), but the audiobook was read from the original online version (still available in full on fictionpress), translated into Russian. My personal opinion is that it’s a clear ideological blend of “Harry Potter” and “Groundhog Day,” or even “The Edge of Tomorrow.” And perhaps if not for a few overly adult elements in places, then like “Harry Potter” it could be classified as children’s literature, but no—better not, for safety. For those who are interested, there is a page on Fantlab.