Alice has spent most of her life on the road, always one step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at her heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her isolated estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice discovers how bad her luck can really get. Her own mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the supernatural world where the fairy tales are set.
Alice's only clue is the message left behind : stay away from the Hazel Wood. To rescue her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began...