In 1665 London, England, 12-year-old Rose lives with Mother and Father and her 16-year-old brother Lem above the successful spice shop that Father owns and operates. Rose has always been intrigued by the names, smells, and medicinal properties of spices, and she has learned much from Father. Life is good, safe, and happy for her family.
Until it’s not.
When Mother suddenly falls ill, Father quarantines himself with Mother because he understands her condition is highly contagious. Risking his own life, he cares for her till her death a few days later. In that time, he blends spices to create an oil that will protect Lem and Rose from what he now knows is a fatal plague.
Just before his own death, Father gives Lem and Rose three bottles of the oil along with the recipe with one unlisted ingredient that only Rose knows. The oil is not a cure for the plague, but offers protection from it. Father tells Lem and Rose to leave the shop because he plans to set it on fire to safeguard them and others from the plague. His instructions are counterintuitive to everything he has ever taught them, “Do not come back. … Steal. Trade. Survive.”
Flung into the horrors of a city under siege by what later became known as the Great Plague—the bubonic plague—Lem and Rose are forced to make choices they had never imagined. They each carry a bottle of the protective oil and dig a hole to hide the third bottle.
Though Rose already feels afraid, she is terrified when Lem leaves one night to steal food and doesn’t return. As Rose’s journey into uncharted territory continues, she discovers a resilience in herself that eventually leads to the formation of an unlikely band of outcasts. When Rose finally understands that she is in danger because of her knowledge of the oil’s recipe, her new family forges a fiercer bond, and together they seek a better future.
Author Caroline Fernandez offers readers ages 9-12 a fast-paced, tender historical novel about children surviving and shaping a life-giving community in a city wracked by sickness and death. Readers will be sure to cheer for Rose, Lem, and their motley new family.
(DCB Young Readers)