About the book: year / Residents of Oldenburg hate the new district governor, nicknamed the Iron Colonel. According to rumors, August von Morungen sold his living heart to the devil, and now a mechanism that knows neither love nor pity beats in the viceroy’s chest. Maya, the daughter of the town watchmaker, must make a difficult choice: marry a nasty moneylender or lose her home forever. But she faces a third option - to agree to von Morungen’s strange proposal and settle for a year in his castle, about which there are even more terrible rumors than about its owner. Maya faces traps and dangers, she is surrounded by shadows and secrets of the past, the solution of which determines the well-being of her hometown, as well as the life of the governor - and her own life