At first glance, the miniature book of hours with gilt-edged pages and the beautiful box that contains it look too small to be of any real consequence—which is exactly why the woman, hardly a thief in her day-to-day life, doesn’t think twice about pocketing the package when it catches her eye at the local antiquarian bookshop. But this minor transgression sets in motion a series of events, each one more disastrous than the one before it; as the pretty little box changes hands—being misplaced, stolen, lost, and discarded—it leaves a path of death and destruction in its wake. Meanwhile, all along, one question courses through this chilling history: is the book really the source of its dreadful power, or are the would-be owners of the item already cursed by their covetous desire to possess it—each impelled by one of the seven deadly sins.

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