The Bookbinder’s Daughter

On her first day as a bookbinder at Ayredale Library, Sophie gazes in awe at the grand, turreted building nestled deep in the English countryside. It’s where her mother Elizabeth worked too: before she disappeared. Clutching her leaf-shaped necklace – all that Elizabeth left behind – Sophie hopes to finally find the truth, and soon feels strangely at home alongside her fellow binders.

But everything changes when a beautiful door – engraved with a leaf matching her mother’s necklace – swings open at her touch. Sophie gasps at the impossible sight inside: a silver tree growing higher than the library itself. Amidst the gentle rustling leaves Sophie hears a familiar whisper. Although there’s no-one to be seen she’s certain it’s her mother’s voice:

‘There you are, my Sophie. I knew you’d come back for me.’

Could the magical library itself have stolen her mother away? And could the necklace unlock the secrets of the tree?

Asking the enigmatic Keeper of the Library for answers gets her nothing but dire warnings – and when another face from her past appears at the grand doors of Ayredale, Sophie’s blood runs cold at his sinister smile. Will she ever find the truth about her mother – or will Sophie be the next to disappear?