Sophie Wickham has been in Hob almost a year when she is told she can leave... if she can solve a puzzle. She walked into the remote Lancashire village without clothing or memory, and discovered that she could not leave. Over the following months she started to piece together the fragments of her life and repeatedly tried -- and failed -- to flee, all under the watchful eye of the benign but sinister inhabitants of the tree-ringed village seemingly cut off from the rest of the world.
Sophie Wickham's life in London was drifting, dissolute and disaffected, living pay-day to pay-day and working dead end temporary jobs. But unknown to Sophie, forces she could not comprehend were slowly edging her towards Hob, and her fate.
And who -- or what -- is Owd Hob, the presence that overshadows not only the village, but seemingly Sophie's whole life?