In a tiny farm on the edge of the miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her tiny, miserable existence. When Mr. Nagg returns home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she thinks: what harm could a little magic do? This debut novel by beloved rare bookseller and memoirist Oliver Darkshire reimagines a heroine of Boccaccio’s DECAMERON in a delightfully deranged world of talking plants, walking corpses, sentient animals and shape-shifting sorcerers. As Isabella and her grouchy, cat-like companion set off to save the village from an entrepreneurial villain running a goblin-fruit Ponzi scheme, Darkshire’s tale revels in the ancient books and arcane folklore of a new and original kind of enchantment.

Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives --- where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one.