London during the Great Exhibition of 1851 is a new world of technological advances, eye-popping inventions, and glimpses of exotic treasures from the East. For fifteen-year-old Norris Woodhead, it's a time of spectral figures mingling with London's daily crowds and an old rectory in a far corner of the English countryside -- a great house literally caught in time, where answers to curious little mysteries await him.

Confined by his family's financial woes, Norris suffers a lonely and unsatisfying time till the day he (and only he) notices "shadow-people" in the streets. Then a strange widow appears, rents a vacant room in the house, and takes him under her wing. She becomes his guardian, slowly revealing those shadows' secrets, Norris' connection with them, and the life-altering choices he has to face in the end.

The Twilight Gods is a retelling of the Native American folktale, "The Girl Who Married a Ghost." Set in Victorian England, it's an alternative perspective on a gay teen's coming-out experience, with Norris' journey of self-discovery couched in magical and supernatural terms and imagery.