Josephine is a 12 year old girl who is just looking for a friend. Her father, the cold and aloof Leopold Reginald Russing, made a mandate that everyone in her town has to wear gloves. At all times after he won a game of five-card stud against the mayor. A mysterious boy name Fargus appeared. Mute and very hungry. One day Fargus went missing and Josephine, scared that she might lose her only friend, chased after him and saw that he disappeared into her shed. The next minute she found herself falling until she finally landed…in the cellar of some strange orphanage called the Institute. She was no longer in her shed.
Josephine met Ida, Fargus’ fiery friend, after she was hauled in there by one of the mistresses, Kitchen Maggie. Ida tells her that she had thought Fargus was kidding when he told her that he met a new friend in a strange dimension. That’s when Josephine found out that she really wasn’t in her shed back home anymore.
Josephine finds herself in Gulm, a strange land where beasts called the Brothers roamed and was ruled with an iron fist by a little boy ominously named the Master. Ida, Fargus, and Josephine – not wanting to be left behind by her new friends – escaped the Institute, not wanting to be the Master’s next victims.
Along the journey, Josephine gets separated from Ida and Fargus by a seemingly harmless couple. With the help of Ned, the sweeper’s son, and his father Morgan, she learns that her status as a Russing holds weight and uses it as leverage to set up a meeting between her and the Master. With the help of her friends and the lost children of Gulm, Josephine defeats the Master and finds her way back home. Where there seems to be another secret that needs to be resolved.
I highly recommend this book if you want a light read filled with light-hearted mystery and fantasy elements.
CCPL Writers' Block 