Alice “Crewe” Proserpine is a teenage girl who moves around with her mother, Ella. Everywhere they move, bad luck follows, which leads them to New York. Ella falls in love with Harold, a wealthy businessman who enrolls Alice in a school full of rich kids. She feels out of place until Ellery Finch, one of the richest kids in the school, befriends her. She learns that he is a fan of her grandmother, Althea’s, storybook, a rare-to-find book popular amongst her small fanbase. Because Althea was never a part of her childhood, Alice resented her, her fanbase, and the fairytales that she was never allowed to read. Because she has had bad experiences with fans, she tried to avoid Finch.
After walking to Harold’s apartment after school one day, Alice finds that no one was home and there was a strange stench that filled the air. She finds an envelope on her bed with the title of of of Althea’s stories on the inside: “Alice-Three-Times”. Realizing that someone from the fairy tale world, the Hinterland, had broken into the apartment and kidnapped Ella, she runs to Finch’s house since he is her only friend who can help her. As they travel across a park, Finch and she run into Twice-Killed-Katherine, a character in Tales from the Hinterland, and figure that the characters area entering the real world. They travel upstate and find the Hazel Wood, which is the place Alice believes her mother was taken. Finch gets attacked by Twice-Killed-Kathrine, leaving Alice alone in the middle of the Hinterland. After what seems like ages wandering through the Hinterland to find the Hazel Wood, she finally stumbles upon her grandmother’s castle. There, she learns about her past and how she and her mother escaped to Earth when she was a baby. Alice realizes that she was tricked into returning to the Hinterland, so she returns to Earth and finds Ella. |