In a city that taxes time and files loneliness under policy, Second Weather: Repairs While You Wait blends romantasy with urban fantasy romance to ask a dangerous question: what if the smallest, truest apology could change the weather?Mira Wells repairs instruments of attention in a shop called Second Weather. Elias Ash makes wind-maps on onion-skin paper and swears by accuracy. When the City's Sky Ledger imposes a Minute Tithe—a bureaucratic skim of everyone's first, best sixty seconds—Mira and Elias build a low wire between rooftops where neighbors can tie brass "e;return tickets,"e; speak in the present tense ("e;I return"e;), and let the line hum under witness. If the rain that follows is real, the map dissolves—proof by vanishing. Their quiet rebellion draws the attention of Lenora Harrow, an inspector who is better at truth than loyalty, and the elusive Conductor, whose neutrality is a rule, not a shrug.What begins as hopepunk handwork becomes a citywide "e;Ensemble Day"e; when the director of Daily Hours weaponizes clocks with a Grey Dawn Order. Power is cut, but people crank small generators, ring bells, and keep time by voice; courtrooms and rooftops sync into a new, lawful ritual: a weekly Witnessed Restoration Interval where minutes are returned, credited—never taxed. Along the way Mira and Elias navigate a slow burn romance that refuses possession, choosing roofs over spectacle, repair over rhetoric. Their circle—baker, music teacher, rooftop elder—forms the kind of found family that makes rules livable.With a tonal blend of magical realism and civic fable, this novel offers intimate stakes and public consequence: audit devices that misread conscience, a ledger that blushes in daylight, an ethics of cutting the line when beauty turns greedy. If you love social justice woven through character-driven fantasy, tactile worldbuilding, and a finale that earns its hope, you'll feel at home here. The city does not become noble; it becomes workable—one present-tense minute at a time.
