Georgina Harris, a voracious reader and daughter of a prominent Law Professor at the University of Cambridge, must learn to find her own way in life, after both her parents are killed in a horrific car accident. She moves to Oxford to live with her Aunt Jemima, and accepts a job at Balzac's Bookshop; and at the same time is introduced to Philip Morris: a wealthy liquor merchant, who is completing a Doctorate on the effects of solitude on Swedish citizens, at the University of Oxford. Then, she meets Henry Xavier. A colleague at Balzac's Bookshop. Henry is a dynamic, narcissistic and selfish third year Philosophy student. Henry lures Georgina into his esoteric world with disastrous consequences.