Book Synopsis

“I decided in that moment that I would reveal to my friends four mysteries of Fairy Oak that they still didn’t know. One story per evening for four evenings, after which I would never talk again about the past. On the first evening I talked about love, on the second about amazing spells, on the third about friendship, and on the fourth I told them about a farewell.”

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Telli’s time in the village is up and so the fairy returns home to the Kingdom of the Silvery Dews. Waiting to welcome her, she finds all her friends who, not satisfied with the letters received over the years, wish to know even more about the village and its inhabitants. So Telli decides to tell four more stories.

​She will reveal four secrets of Fairy Oak, one secret every evening for four evenings, then she will no longer talk about the past.

She devotes the first evening to the Captain’s Band and the Captain himself, entrusting Grisam, the twins and the rest of the gang with the task of revealing the secret concealed behind the identity of William Talbot.
Assembled in the cave, or in the hut, by the light of fairies or of oil lamps, under Oak’s branches on cold but sunny days or in the twins’ house, in the tower or in front of the fire, the youngsters put together the pieces of their Captain’s story, which unfolds in a series of stunning twists.
In fact a mystery enshrouds the past of the man who said he was a valiant commander.
On opening his sea chest, Grisam, Vanilla, Lavender, Flox and Shirley come across a letter.
It is addressed to a dearly beloved wife and is signed by the Captain of the Isabella II, but something doesn’t add up. The signature at the foot of the letter is not that of Captain William E. Talbot, as the kids expected, but of a mysterious “Captain W. Edward Temby”. And there’s worse! Captain Temby writes that he has accepted on board his ship “that flea-ridden vagabond Talbot”! The children are stunned. They cannot believe that their Captain lied.
In the meantime, the handsome inventor Jim Burium must return home. In saying goodbye to Vanilla, he declares his love for her and not only that: young Burium also conceals a secret that no one thinks to connect with Temby’s letter, mistakenly…
On opening the trunk, the young friends have freed a story locked up and forgotten for many years, deliberately forgotten! A story that doesn’t concern the Captain alone. A few clues, unexpected discoveries and laconic memories lead the youngsters to put together the pieces of a buried past that sometimes seems obscure and even frightening.
Who was William Talbooth? And Edward Temby?
Who really wrote that letter?
And why had Jim run away from home before arriving in Fairy Oak?
Strange but true, the image that slowly takes shape before the astonished eyes of the twins and their friends, that which emerges from the fog of mystery, has the eyes and smile of love.
Is this why, after the trunk is opened, that the entire village seems to have a love story to tell?
The coincidence is a strange one, yet it really seems that in Fairy Oak no one can stop themselves from talking about that magical, very special moment in which you get butterflies in the stomach. That moment in which everything seems to stop and your heart becomes fragile and light in your breast, ready to shatter into a thousand pieces or open up to release a flight of emotions that well up in your throat and take your breath away.
Well, perhaps there really is a connection between the mysterious letter found in the trunk and the love that, all of a sudden, seems to have lit up everyone’s heart.
But this is neither the time nor the place to give away the ending. All you need to know is that this book talks about mysteries and love, many kinds of love. These include the undeclared love between Tomelilla and Duff Burdock, a lute maker’s sincere love for  music and his dog, the deeply-rooted love between Dahlia and Cicero, the imperfect love between Grisam and Lavender and the unrequited love linking a mysterious lady and a Captain.



This is the first book in the series The Four Mysteries. It is also the most intense and engrossing.

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