"Elva loves Iceland for many reasons - the epic landscape of gods and volcanoes, weather that's the polar opposite of her home in Australia, and the fact that it's where her mother might have gone back to when she disappeared. Iceland is where Elva's beloved grandfather - the famous children's book author - lives in a remote village and where the beings that haunt her imagination reside. Elva is interested in the odd things people make - Victorian collectibles, old spells, taxidermy, fairy tales. The weird, the wonderful and the sometimes macabre. She's got a few quirks of her own that she's (mainly) keeping under control. Except one. Working in a shop of curiosities, studying at an Icelandic language school, Elva begins to explore her obsessions, and when her grandfather suffers a stroke, they threaten to overtake her. Then she meets Remy, a painter who's got some secrets of his own ..." -- Back cover.