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A dark, lyrical fantasy blending the world of the Fae with the stories mothers tell to keep their daughters safe - and the consequences of disregarding the truth, no matter how sinister.

Gemma lives with her mother in an isolated antique shop in Michigan, near a small patch of woods that conceals an enchanted gateway to fairyland. She knows she's not supposed to go into the woods - her mother Virginia has warned her multiple times about the monsters that lurk there - and yet defiantly, curiously, she goes anyway.

Virginia understands her daughter's defiance. She knows the lure of the woods all too well. Her own mother warned her about the monsters that resided there, and she also did not listen. Until a witch cursed her true love, Ash - Gemma's father - into the form of a beast in the days before Gemma's birth. And if Virginia cannot break the curse before her daughter turns fifteen, Ash will eat Virginia's heart and Gemma will belong to the witch. So Virginia will do whatever she can to protect her daughter - even if it means stealing Gemma's memories away.

But everything changes when Gemma inadvertently gets too close to the truth, and the witch steals Virginia away instead. Now it is up to Gemma to venture deep into Fae lands to try and rescue her mother and break the curse.

Told in alternating viewpoints between Gemma and Virginia, this lyrical novel is not only a tale of a girl's fantastical quest through a darkly magical fairyland, but also an examination of the complex bonds of love and resentment that lie between parents and their children.


© Alyssa Wees 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024