Includes three novels: The Bookshop, about a bookstore owner bothered by hostile townsfolk, The Gates of Angels, an Edwardian romance, and The Blue Flower, about the fictionalized relationship between German poet, Novalis and his true love.

In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, and as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural and even supernatural forces too.