Having spent too much time with too many terrible men, Iolanthe Tennyson has had a terrible year. Desperate to get away, she accepts her cousin's invitation to spend the summer in Austria. She indulges her photography hobby, but rumours of a haunted forest distract her and draw her deep into the dark woods and into the eighteenth century. Transported to a new time and place, Iolanthe meets Nikola Czerny, a man cursed to live forever as a Dark One. But his miserable existence takes an intriguing turn when a strange, babbling woman is thrown in his path.
