Fiona King has lived a sheltered life. Her father and her husband have been making all possible choices for her, always telling her she was too odd and too clueless for the real life. When she's offered a contract to illustrate children's books, will she venture into the world that scares her for the sake of her art, the only thing that feels right and true to her? Frederic 'Axeman' Holyoake has returned from Iraq and doesn't seem to be able to find himself a place in the civilian world. When his brother's wife offers him to stay in her old cottage for a few weeks, he doesn't expect to find himself in the company of a young woman, a talented illustrator of children's books, whom his brother, the owner of a large publishing house, has recently discovered creating her magical paintings of fairies and sprites while working in a village pub with her husband. Will a man with a difficult past find love and purpose sharing a cottage with a woman with a bright but uncertain future?

It's hard to be the favourite of a man who turns into a monster. An autobiography about my abusive childhood and how it affects me to this day.