Dot waitresses on roller skates at the Dairy Bob, doesn't care for smoking at least partly on account of her dad having never returned from a cigarette run, and carries on the family tradition of philosophizing. Life hasn't done her any favors in her seventeen years so far. But if there was ever a heroine built for turning things upside down and seeing what shakes out, it's Dot. Determined to find out who she is and why she's the way she is, an opportunity...

"The second Frankie Green gets that scholarship letter, he has his ticket out of Jamaica. The second his longtime crush, Leah, asks him on a date, he's in trouble. The second his father gets shot, suddenly nothing else matters. And the second Frankie joins his uncle's gang in exchange for paying for his father's medical bills, there's no going back-- or is there?"--

In 1852, when seventeen-year-old Katharine is sent to her family's estate to prove that her uncle is insane, she finds he is an inventor whose work creating ingenious clockwork figures supports hundreds of families. But strange occurences soon have her doubting her own sanity.

When Katharine Tulman foils an attempt to kidnap her Uncle Tully, she finds herself caught up in international intrigue. Aware that there are people who want to turn her uncle's mechanical fish into an explosive device, and unsure of who to trust, she decides to fake her uncle's death and flee to Paris in search of Lane Moreau, her uncle's assistant.

"I don't mix well with people; I prefer the birds. I spend my time trying to find the Trickster-a finch treasured by the locals. My smart mouth, brash behavior, and being non-binary in this secluded southern town keep me on the periphery of Spastoke's society. Fine by me. All I need are the birds and my uncle Jeremy. Until he dies, and I can't do anything to stop it. I want to withdraw from the town into the comfort of birdwatching and forget everything....