At fourteen, Nevine Turner believed foster care was the epitome of despair. However, her perception changes completely when she is sent to the mysterious Grimoire Manor for Orphaned Girls. Nevine discovers that Grimoire Manor is filled with cranky teachers, abandoned attics, and four generations worth of anguished and tortured Grimoire family souls haunting their former home. Barely settled in, Nevine finds herself mysteriously whisked to the city of Prague in the year 1888. There, she is saved from a murderous ghoul by Xanthae Halruaa, an eccentric physicist and ghost-hunter. From Xanthae, Nevine learns the trade of ghost-hunting. Together, they work out the secrets of the haunting of Grimoire Manor, the Ghoul of Prague, and the mysterious connections between the two that force Nevine to flip between Grimoire Manor and Prague when she sleeps.