Beatrix is great at three things: taming living books, keeping her head down, and trusting no one.

When a member of the wealthy Knight of the Faith family offers her a job that’s clearly too good to be true, she accepts against her better judgement. The arrangement seems simple enough: discreetly tame a library full of books the Church might kill for and tutor the family’s awkward yet fascinating heir, Steffen, in the art of booktaming.

What could possibly go wrong?

She soon realises she’s been a pawn in a game she didn’t even know she was playing. As the winter solstice approaches, her employer grows secretive about their true intentions for the tamed books while other booktamers start asking questions she’d rather avoid. But getting close to the one person she was never meant to could be her most reckless move yet.