1922. Since the Great War, Ruby Vaughn has made a life for herself running a rare bookshop alongside her octogenarian employer and housemate in Exeter. She's always avoided dwelling on the past, but it has a way of finding her. When Ruby must deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she'd never return: Penryth Hall.

A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby's once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. Ruby is eager to leave, but her plans change when Penryth's bells ring for the first time in thirty years. Edward is dead. He met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, whose books brought her to Cornwall, who the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn't believe in curses or Pellars but to the villagers, the curse is anything but lore. To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night.