Opal is a lot of things - orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic, and part-time cashier - but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother, Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.

As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, January Scaller feels little different from the artifacts that decorate his sprawling mansion: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. But when she finds a strange book - one that tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure, and danger - for the first time, January realizes she can escape her story and sneak into someone else’s….