Orphan of North End's infamous Snatching Hag, Eloise Wayward stumbles into a terrifying fork in the road of Fate: succumb to a historical fear of prejudice and persecution as rumors of hagcraft emerge, or dare to uncover a world of magic as real as the blood that runs through her veins? She may just stop the outbreak of a war between humans and witches on her way...

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Eloise Wayward, otherwise known as the orphan of North End’s infamous Snatching Hag, has lived her entire reclusive life on the cliffs of the northern shores where no one need suspect her of anything sinister. However, the arrival of a misinformed letter addressed to her mother upturns her routinely melancholic life. Running from a troublesome string of rumors about the revival of hagcraft in the lands to the east, avoiding an unprecedented proposal of love by a neighbor, and obsessing after the appearance of a mysterious white bird, Eloise travels to the whaling city of Port Floundering. There awaits the sender of the letter, a friend from her mother’s distant past. 

Although Eloise hopes to come to terms with the death of her mother and disprove any accusations claiming she could be a hag’s child, Eloise’s epic journey of self-discovery is quickly wrought with danger, magics, and the unknown. Secrets abound of a power she didn’t think possible and a growing darkness rises in the east. The world has forever accused her of being a hag and a monster, but now Eloise must make a choice. 

With her life under threat and her newfound friendships at risk, should she survive as a coward and accept fear as her shadow? Or, risk dying to fight for a future she never thought she'd have?

Full synopsis (SPOILERS):

Eloise Wayward is a melancholic woman accustomed to her solitary life atop the hilly cliffs of North End. Having remained there an orphan for nigh a decade under the scrutiny of people who would suspect her a hag, her story begins with an invitation; not for her, but her long-deceased mother. Curiosity, an old and stale emotion, urges her beyond the suffocating town of North End to Port Floundering.

On meeting the sender of the letter, prominent Station Master in the port city, Eloise is confronted by a rigid society which, under their own god, celebrates their industries, their capital, and their High Council. Fearing the threat of social ostracism and feeling at odds with her questionable identity, the company of an insider may be just what she needs to feel less homesick. On meeting a strange Keeper named Titus, Eloise feels she may finally be in the presence of someone with answers. Doubtful thoughts of her mother's innocence sparks action: Titus's work in the city's Archives must be able to enlighten her to who she is, to what truly marks a hag from the rest of civilization. 

A critical moment strikes quite literally at the Archive's gala when a hag's wildling familiar, terrible and real, bombards the party with a premonition of doom: a declaration of war falls on the petrified people of the Port, and the present High Keeper sends the rioters to the streets. Knowing what blasphemous information she had been searching for and that Titus had seen her do so, Eloise chooses to flee the city. Survival leads her east towards the forests and the mountains, to a place she never intended nor thought to visit.

Arriving in the town of Haymire far from the Port, Eloise seeks to reassemble normalcy in the town her parents disappeared long ago in the past. Though Titus forged a valuable friendship with Eloise on the journey, she wonders just who exactly she is; as she certainly has no affinity for magic. Finding solace in the company of a young child named Magpie and the hospitality of the local community, it seems all is well for a short time until Speakers from the Port arrive with word of a new Hunt.

Fearing the worst, Eloise dreads to show herself. But upon leaving her residence for a walk in the woods which have long been deserted, a wondrous encounter with a willow shakes her heart with truth: there is violence brewing in the woods, and certainly some magic in her, untapped as it is. Finding herself wary of the willow's words, she accompanies Titus as the town burns their fields of blight. More of the mysterious hag's wildlings descend on the fields as the people of Haymire see who to blame: Eloise, whose clothes did not burn and whose pleas seemed to dissuade the beasts from dragging her friend into darkness.

Knowing her life to be forfeit should she stay, Eloise bids Titus goodbye and heads back to the woods in search of the child Magpie. Led through the night with a growing determination, Eloise falls into a familiar meadow where she meets a mountainous figure calling themself the Warden of the Weald (the same figure she read about in Titus's Archives). The mystical encounter is short lived as now, for the first time, Eloise sees the hag from across the meadow ponds. Isolde the hag, grieved at the historical wrongs committed towards her family, is certain the town will be decimated in the coming days. Little persuaded by Eloise to stop the violence, Eloise is left with nothing else to do but attend her own trial in secret.

As Haymire welcomes a Seeker from the Port city to enact the Hunt, Eloise watches from the shadows as neighbors baselessly defame her, while Titus remains loyal. While Eloise confronts the bars of his jail cell late in the night, Titus clues her to the location of the witches' book he brought from the Archives. Thinking themselves parted, Eloise goes to retrieve the book on the eve of Isolde's attack.

Eager to run away but having no direction, Eloise wakes in the morning intent to find the Warden. She finds them in the same meadow as wondrous as when she first met them. Now, however, the Warden reveals that Eloise has had her soul divorced from herself early in her infancy as a protection against the humans and their hatred for what she is. Free to hear the voices of the wind and the trees for the first time, Eloise decides she cannot run: she must face Isolde and the town.

Given hope by the Warden, Eloise arrives in Haymire as the first attack begins: waves of wildlings crash through the barricades and fly down upon the Speakers of town. Distracted by a carriage she knows must be taking Titus away, Eloise goes to aid her friend. Sensing that Isolde draws nearer, the two of them approach the center of town as the beasts quiet. Isolde, more haggard than before, drained of life and magic, faces down the Seeker and the canon set up in town. A wave of chaos breaks out in the square as Eloise confronts Isolde with her own magic: a wish to end the fighting and deliver the town to the forest, a wish which the Warden said would kill her.

In a panic, the humans desert the town as the forest grows up around them. Isolde is diminished to nothing, her soul restored to peace. Titus is left holding the body of Eloise, and makes a wish of his own as the girl Magpie steps forward with an aura suspiciously akin to a god's.

Returned to North End, damaged but whole, Eloise is confused to know how she could be alive. Finding Titus outside her familiar front porch and seeing he too sacrificed a part of himself to bring her back, the two of them find solace in each other’s company.

The book ends with an epilogue detailing the High Speaker's response to know that an entire town was destroyed by hags he decreed were extinct. A new era of Hunts begins.