When I was a young girl my mother always told me to 'be careful what you wish for'. Too bad Alys, the young girl around whom this story centers, didn't heed that admonishment when her mentor/mother Morach made it. At an early age Alys came to live with Morach, an old wise woman who lives alone in a remote cottage out on the moors. Morach trains the young Alys in the healing arts of an herbalist. When Alys falls in love though it is the young man's parents who literally offer Alys to the local nunnery.

Still a child, Alys takes one look at the luxurious life of the nuns (as compared to her own life living in Morach's hovel), and is happy to join them. She is fostered by Mother Hildebrande who treats her like a daughter. Shortly after Alys has taken her vows, the nunnery is raided and torched by Lord Hugo acting under the orders of King Henry VIII. Fleeing for her life in the dead of night, Alys realizes that her fellow sisters have all burned in their beds and that she is the only survivor. She finds her way back to Morach's filthy hovel and is taken back in. In no time at all she is back to being Morach's apprentice although she tries to keep to her vows as best she can.

When the old lord of the area, Lord Hugo's father, becomes sick he sends for the wise woman from the moors - not Morach, but Alys. She goes unwillingly but in time she wins the heart of the old lord and continues on at the castle to work as his clerk since she can read and write.

From this point on it becomes the familiar love triangle - Alys falls in love with Lord Hugo (who burned down the nunnery). Hugo is married however to a seemingly barren woman who has produced no heirs and he is prone to taking his pleasures everywhere else. Alys wants no part of him since she is trying to maintain the vows she has taken. In due time though she succumbs to Lord Hugo's charms and falls completely in love. When she finds that he thinks of her only as a pleasant diversion she brings in Morach. Morach warns her that in order to turn Hugo towards her it will take more than Alys may want to give up. In short, black magic or a pact with the devil. But Alys has her sights set on being the lady of the castle and nothing short of marriage to Hugo will please her. So she turns her back on everything holy and uses everything at her disposal to secure her future. But is she truly secure?

After getting pregnant with Hugo's child Alys believes that she is Hugo's chosen lady, especially since his wife suffers an ugly and unspeakable miscarriage. The tale concludes with a twist that is unexpected and brilliant. To say more would be anticlimatic.

Note: There are some explicit scenes not for the faint of heart.