Philip Pullman returns to the world of 'His Dark Materials' with this novel, set ten years before 'Northern Lights' and featuring his much-loved character, Lyra Belacqua. Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them; a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua . . .