Patience, little puppet. The night is long, and we have just begun.

After the suspicious death of Jacapo, the well-loved toymaker, criminal investigator Valentine Anzio returns to his hometown of Minerva to help solve the suspected murder.

He’d hoped never to go back. Perhaps things have changed and the nightmares won't plague him. Perhaps Devere, the toymaker’s son, won’t remember the kiss Valentine gave him all those years ago, and perhaps Valentine will keep the pieces of his fractured heart intact…

But it soon becomes clear, little has changed in Minerva. The handsome, powerful lord who’s paying Valentine desires more than the truth, and the aloof but alluring toymaker’s son isn’t as guilty as the whole town appears to believe.

If truth, justice, and a childhood love are to prevail, Valentine must discover who killed Jacapo the toymaker, or the lonely, brilliant, and enchanting Devere, will hang.

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Content warnings include but are not limited to; drug use, child abuse (mental abuse, not shown, historic), attempted rape, homophobia, lynching, suicide.