Once there lived a girl, who lived in Thanona, a little provential village. Her mother was dead, her father was a ruined merchant turned inventor, and her sisters were babied. They missed the life they lived before their father's ruin, in the city. But not her.

Arabella Durand is happy in the village. She runs her father's house, and takes on all the responsibility therein. But when she catches the eye of the most eligible bachelor in the village, whom she finds arrogant and boarish, Arabella is distraught. After being forced to plan a wedding she doesn't want, due to a misunderstanding, Arabella goes out into the woods to clear her head. She soon gets lost, and comes across a ruined castle. And once she goes inside, she becomes the prisoner of a monster.

But sometimes things aren't always what they seem. Love and hatred, jealousy and admiration, monsters and men: they are separated by a fine line. And when that line blurs, Arabella must learn what the difference in truth and reality is.