Harry King, artist and antiques dealer, thinks he has just made the worst purchase of his life – an enormous Victorian chest of drawers filled with ancient newspapers and bric-a-brac that now takes up half his shop. But when he trips over the beautiful historian Ramma Gupta, he realises he might have got more than he bargained for. 

Their story becomes entwined with the life of a Victorian explorer who mysteriously disappeared. A cross-cultural journey takes them from Oxford to India to uncover love, secrets, and the teachings of a lost empire.