A Teapot that never empties, an Ice Hook that freezes any water it touches, an Ember that burns without end--Clover Elkin lives in a land of marvels at the edge of the eleven Unified States. She dreams of a life of buck-skinned adventure,

collecting wondrous oddities as her late mother did before her, but her everpractical doctor father tells her to "see to the body before you."



Across the border is French Louisiana, rival to her young country and the source of escalating tensions that threaten more than her peaceful mountain home. When her father is killed defending her from lawless men, his last words

send her on a quest to protect the most necessary oddity, one that could help start a war ... or end it.



On her journey, Clover encounters a talking Rooster, a grinning medicine-show performer, and a secret-stealing Hat, all while being pursued by the men who shot her father and by hand-stitched vermin whose mistress is the most feared person

in all these dangerous borderlands.



Clever, brave, and determined, Clover Elkin is an unforgettable heroine in a land that is a looking glass version of nineteenth-century America in all its wonders and terrors, heroism and treachery.