Jack Kelly is a successful novelist who leads a reclusive life in his apartment in Paris. His first novel, Made in Belfast, was a critical and commercial success – there was only one problem: it exposed the private lives and innermost secrets of his close friends and family, and none of them have spoken to him since he ran away. But when circumstances conspire to bring him back to his hometown for a few days, he decides to spend that time putting things right with the friends he betrayed, the brother he abandoned, and the fiancée he jilted.

Seven noble families fight for control of the mythical land of Westeros. Friction between the houses leads to full-scale war. All while a very ancient evil awakens in the farthest north. Amidst the war, a neglected military order of misfits, the Night's Watch, is all that stands between the realms of men and icy horrors beyond.