"Baroque, Byzantine and beautiful--not to mention bold. An enthralling puzzle picture of a book" -- M. R. Carey, author of the best-selling The Girl With All the Gifts "Compelling. the love child of Gormenghast and Hogwarts." -- The Guardian 1558: Twelve children, gifted far beyond their years, are banished by their Tudor queen to the town of Rotherweird. Some say they are the Golden Generation; some say the devil's spawn. But everyone knows they are to be revered--and feared.

Four and a half centuries later, cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I and still bound by its ancient laws, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: no one, but no one studies the town or its history. Then an Outsider arrives, a man of unparalleled wealth and power, enough to buy the whole of Rotherweird--deeply buried secrets and all.