Maybe there really had been angels then – anything could be true of the past, I thought.

In interwar East London, a young wife helps her new husband in their silverware shop. Bea’s days are punctuated by visitations of an angel who flits at the edge of her sight, each appearance carefully logged in the pages of a scarlet journal.

In a time like now, Kay works temp jobs and spends nights dancing and arguing politics. For as long as she can remember, mysterious time travellers have watched her silently wherever she goes. At her grandmother’s house, she finds a intriguing record of an angel’s visits.

A hundred years into the future, outsiders have banded together to live off-grid away from a corrupt government and a city wracked by oppression and climate change. When Ess is carefully chosen for a virgin mission, a journey into the past to help save the present, she is guided only by a well-thumbed red notebook…