In the life of bookseller E. J. Fikry, there’s a dark streak. His wife has died, the bookstore is about to go bankrupt, and his most valuable book—the rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tamerlane”—is stolen. Fikry grows more and more withdrawn, fencing himself off from everyone who cares about him. Even books no longer bring him joy… But everything will change when Fikry finds a mysterious stranger in his store. Soon he will look at the world differently, and the world will learn an entirely different Fikry.