This is my second favorite Helen Oyeyemi book so far after What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, a book that made me declare "I will read everything this author ever writes". Oyeyemi's stories are very hard to pin down. It feels deeply simplistic to call them re-workings of fairy tales, though that is one aspect of some of her books. They are generally set in the present day and generally at least one magical or impossible thing occurs, but that is what the whole plot revolves around. They also often end very abruptly, before what I would consider the end of the story, and leave me dreamy and pondering for a while afterwards. The main character of this book is Harriet, a teacher and ginderbread baker, who has a challenging mother and a challenging daughter. The bulk of the book is her telling the story of her childhood to her daughter Perdita. Harriet was born in Druhastrania, an Eastern European country which may or may not actually exist. Her and her mother escaped the country with the help of a changeling and a family of wealthy benefactors who then almost completely controlled their lives. Every relationship in this book is a complicated one, with the ties of love, duty, fear, obligation, hate, spite, affection, and blood all deeply tangled together. I'd recommend it, but be prepared for some of it's mysteries to stay mysteries.