The Wood Beyond the World

A young man fleeing a broken marriage sees three impossible strangers at the harbor: a misshapen Dwarf, a beautiful Maid wearing an iron ring, and a magnificent Lady whose presence is almost impossible to resist.

When those same figures appear again beyond the ordinary world, Walter follows them into a realm where beauty conceals bondage and desire carries consequences. The Lady possesses dangerous knowledge and an increasingly possessive interest in him. The Maid lives under her power, marked by the iron ring at her ankle. To understand what binds them-and what he himself wants-Walter must venture deeper into the Wood Beyond the World.

This dark fantasy romance combines dangerous attraction, sorcery, captivity, wilderness travel, and escape with an emotionally central love story. Part fantasy romance and part dark fantasy adventure, the story moves through enchanted forests, hidden dwellings, strange peoples, magical deception, violent danger, and a relationship that becomes inseparable from survival.

William Morris's The Wood Beyond the World helped shape the tradition from which modern romantasy and romantic fantasy developed. This rewritten classic fantasy edition preserves Walter, the Maid, the Lady, the Dwarf, the major journeys, magical encounters, conflicts, and original story resolution while presenting them in clearer, more immediate, atmospheric prose.

For readers looking for a dark fantasy romance with sorcery and escape, a captive heroine fighting for freedom, dangerous supernatural beauty, enchanted wilderness, romantic yearning, and an old-world fantasy journey where love changes the path forward.