Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project: studying the inner workings of a faerie realm as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival-now fiancé-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell's long-lost kingdom. Emily finds it a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first, she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world. How could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-Wendell's murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell's magic-and Emily's knowledge of stories-to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.