The dawn of a new century. A mysterious green comet appears in the sky. As the comet draws ever nearer, strange events start to become part of everyday life. The Year of Wonders has begun.

People wake up to find a world of marvels outside their window. There's a troll under London Bridge. Mermaids are swimming up the Mississippi. There's a dragon trying to hatch the Taj Mahal. And every rainbow ends in a crock of gold.

Fantasy is part of the everyday world and nothing will be the same again. But fantasy is a coin with two sides, and there are also age-old nightmares waiting in the darkness to become real again.

Jack Ember is an investigator for the Royal Mythological Society. Estelle Meadowvane is the aristocratic young amateur astronomer who discovered the green comet. Their missions carry them across a world transformed by magic. On the way they'll encounter perils and marvels, friends and foes, loyalty and betrayal. It's a year that will change their lives forever.

The odds are stacked against Jack and Estelle. Ranged against them are witches, pterodactyls, vampires, automata, sea monsters, two-thousand-year-old sorcerers, giant babies and murderous plants. But luckily this is the one year when anyone can achieve the impossible. You just have to try a little harder.