A fantastic tale of intrigue, love, war, magic, and swashbuckling adventure set in an alternate universe where fairies mingle freely with Englishmen and all of Shakespeare's fictional characters are real
Welcome to an alternate civil-war-torn seventeenth-century England—a world where Hamlet once brooded and Othello jealously raged. Here faeries and sprites gambol in English woods, railroads race across the landscape while manned balloons float above the countryside, and the most respected historian of all is one William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.

The year is 1644, and the war between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers rages. When Rupert, nephew of King Charles I, is taken captive by Cromwell's troops and imprisoned in a Puritan home, he is immediately smitten with the beautiful Jennifer Alayne, his captor's niece. Escaping with the help of his newfound beloved and the loyal trooper Will Fairweather, Rupert leads Jennifer deep into the...