The Dark Unwinding

When a rumor that her uncle is squandering away the family fortune surfaces, Katharine Tulman is sent to his estate to have him committed to an asylum. But instead of a lunatic, Katharine discovers a genius inventor with his own set of childlike rules, who is employing a village of nine hundred people rescued from the workhouses of London. Katharine becomes torn between protecting her own livelihood and preserving the peculiar community she has grown to care for deeply. And things are made even more complicated by her developing feelings for her uncle's handsome apprentice, and the strange occurrences that have doubting her own sanity. As the mysteries of the estate begin to unravel, it is clear that not only is her uncle's world at stake, but also the state of England as Katharine knows it.