Synopsis
London, 2025 – An impulsive estate auction purchase unleashes a lost secret.
London, 1885 – A planned visit has unexpected consequences.
When antiquarian bookshop owner Liv Harrington discovers cryptic annotations in a Victorian novel, she's drawn into a mystery spanning generations. The elaborate marginal codes connect her to Catherine Halford, a woman navigating London's literary world over a century earlier.
As Liv decodes the encrypted messages, someone is determined to keep these histories buried. Each revelation brings the past crashing into the present, threatening her safety and everything she thought she knew. In a dangerous game of literary detection, she must decide which secrets deserve to be told.
A richly layered mystery where two women's lives intertwine across time through a book whose secrets refuse to stay hidden between the lines.
Early Praise
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Read an Excerpt
From Chapter 1: Acquisition
Rain fell with British persistence—not heavy enough to command respect, not light enough to ignore. It gathered like unpaid invoices, like doubts. Olivia Harrington glanced at her phone, confirming she still had plenty of time to reach Hampstead using the Northern Line from Leicester Square station, just a short walk from her bookshop.
The worn leather messenger bag clutched close to her body held her essentials: a small notebook, three pens (they always failed at crucial moments), a pocket magnifying glass, and the auction catalogue. In one hand, she carried her compact folding trolley—an unglamorous but indispensable tool she'd learnt to bring after her first auction left her struggling with boxes on public transport.
Liv, as everyone but her creditors called her, consulted London's transport app, her thumb hovering with the practised wisdom of someone who knew every shortcut and backup route...