"Who the hell are you?" A.J. asks the baby.

For no apparent reason, she stops crying and smiles at him. "Maya," she answers.

That was easy, A.J. thinks. "How old are you?" he asks.

Maya holds up two fingers.

"You're two?"

Maya smiles again and holds up her arms to him."

A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and a prized rare first edition has been stolen.

But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life - and Maya's - is changed forever.

Gabrielle Zevin is the author of eight novels, including Elsewhere and, most recently, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which is a New York Times bestseller.