Summary

Chapter 1 opens in Binsey, Oxfordshire in the year 1940. Six-year-old Flora Lea awakens alone in the woods by the Thames. She has her stuffed bear, Berry, and a red blanket. Flora is unafraid as she and her sister, Hazel, often imagine that they live in a place called Whisperwood. Flora is cautious of the river, which Hazel always warns her about

Chapter 2 flashes forward to 1960. Hazel is working her last day at Hogan’s Rare Book Shoppe in Bloomsbury, London. The night before, she went out with her friends, Tim and Poppy, to celebrate her new job. Hazel is to work at Sotheby’s “on the international team of specialists in rare books and manuscripts in English literature” (11). Her friends teased her about having to work with the dreadful Lord Arthur Dickson. Hazel’s current boss, Edwin Hogan, is tough but kind. Ninety-two-year-old Edwin...