Esther Talbot has never worked in a library, which she considers a personal failing. She has, however, held a card at eleven of them, and can tell you which ones let you eat at the tables.

She grew up in a house where the shelves were double-stacked and nobody could find anything, which is likely why she became a person who organizes for comfort. She studied medieval history, on the theory that it would be useful. It has not been, except constantly.

She lives in a small town and is a devoted student of the form: the one good bakery, the feud nobody can explain anymore, the way a place decides you belong before it tells you.

She writes the sort of book she’d want handed to her on a bad afternoon — small towns, patient women, magic that’s more domestic than spectacular, love that takes its time, and buildings with opinions.