John Collan’s greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village’s devil goat on his way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan but Lambert Simne and has been hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown. Removed from his humble origins and sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir, Lambert is put into play by his masters. He learns the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons. Joan has two paths available to her --- marry or become a nun. Lambert’s choices are similarly stark: he will either become king or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.

Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever. Into their lives comes Noor, a psychologist working at the Nepenthe memory removal clinic in London. The process of reinstating patients’ memories begins to shake the moral foundations of her world. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.