A boy named John, searching for scrap in the park, finds a glittering Golden Heart, palm sized and shaped like a starfish. He puts it into his shirt pocket, at which point the Golden Heart automatically implants itself into his body.



The Heart then begins to learn about him, and slowly begins to enhance his talents, and his inclinations.



Unfortunately, it also triggers a signal to transition to a new world, ruled by the makers of the Hearts.



John begins his journey in a society of potentially vicious inhabitants; Catapurs, an Army of Vladicons, Zymotars and Humankind.



Soon he will meet the Ethereals, who have watched this earth from without for two thousand years, and feel a desperate need to set foot on it again.



Alone and naïve, in a world from which he cannot escape, John is in the centre of a war, millenniums old. But, something far more dangerous and angry is on the way.The previous owner of the Heart.



The Golden Heart meanwhile, continues to grow stronger, bestowing on John power that he does not understand, and causing him to make choices that may prove to be very good or very, very bad. He eventually discovers what it means to have to decide between heart and necessity.