When the Stag came, it was not me he would have chosen. Seven sisters live impoverished in a small cabin in the forest. Their father, a traveling hunter, has raised them alone for more than ten years, barely making it through each winter that is colder than the last. So when a mysterious giant white stag appears in the woods and offers him wealth and stability in exchange for one of his daughters, he cannot say no. Aster Fallowfall: the youngest, most plain, and most bold of her sisters. The one to say yes. Whisked into the nightmarish realm of the Palewood, Aster finds herself in a world of monsters and monarchs entirely foreign- and the very Stag who claimed her dances between being her greatest ally and her greatest enemy. But for every day she spends in the Palewood, she finds herself drawn deeper into this world, doing anything to find out more about it and the strange man who frequents the palace at night. Only she can save him, she believes: gifted with courage from her mother's fae side, it is up to Aster to be the heroine of this story. But forces far greater than her watch every move, and only one power is strong enough to defeat them all and prevail over the dangers of the Palewood.