The Bookbinder’s Code

For fans of bookish mysteries, with an intriguing story of a secret society, a mythical book and murder.

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Read on, if you dare…

Oxford, 1903. At Caxton & Delaney Fine Bookbinders, Lily Delaney has at last begun to shape a future of her own. But when her friend and mentor John Caxton disappears without a word, leaving behind only a journal written in baffling code, the life she has so carefully built is troubled by questions she cannot ignore.

As Lily begins to decipher the journal, she uncovers the hidden story of Caxton’s youth: a circle of brilliant, reckless students, a theft long buried, and the whispered legend of the Liber Numerorum – the Book of Numbers – a volume so rare and strange that many believe it exists only in rumour.

Following the trail from Oxford to York, London and Cambridge, Lily is drawn through private libraries, auction houses and old collections, where each discovery brings another fragment of the past to light.

But the deeper Lily ventures into the coded shadows of Caxton’s past, the more she must reckon with a question she cannot set aside: whether the truth, once uncovered, can ever be safely bound again.

Perfect for fans of:

📚Books about books

📜Historical fiction

🔍Hidden mysteries

💗Forbidden romance

🕵🏻‍♀️Strong FMCs

🎭Colourful side characters

😱Twists, turns, and jaw-dropping secrets

About the author

A. D. Bell lives in Oxford, haunting the city’s bookshops of a weekend, writing in their cafés, and walking the winding paths of her characters.