There is an old bookshop called the Wanderer’s Wonders in the heart of Kulden—a small, often forgotten town tucked in a far northern corner of England—and as far as Claudia Jolicoeur is concerned, it’s magical, for it always has something she needs. From love stories and poetry to theories and discoveries, she has never once been able to leave empty-handed in the decade that she’s been coming here. She and her mother used to come twice a week for Claudia to buy any book of her choosing. Back then, they could afford it. Her mother was a Roe, the only daughter of the famous watchmakers who made a fortune from being the first to include minute hands on their signature timepieces.Things changed when Claudia’s father was introduced to fine wine and expensive cigars, to boxing and betting on horse races. As it turned out, he didn’t have the constitution to merely sip his vices. He gorged on them at the expense of their entire fortune.

Now her mother is long dead, their money long gone, and it has taken an entire month for Claudia to scrounge up enough coins to buy one book. Her father has been pawning her mother’s jewelry—all pieces that were meant to be Claudia’s. She’s entitled to the money he makes from those sales, though her father doesn’t agree. Instead of arguing for what she’s owed, she spares herself the trouble by pocketing it when he sleeps, little by little so that he won’t notice.

One book a month makes her feel like her brain is shriveling up. She’d considered stealing some—old Mr. Aimes who owns the shop is half blind and half asleep at all times—but she could never bring herself to do it. No matter how far her family has fallen in station, no matter how much money they’ve lost to her father’s gambling, she would never stoop so low as to be a liar and a thief. She is still a lady, and the Jolicoeurs are still good, regardless of what the society papers say.