"Most of the girls called me Lou and just...tittered, when they saw me. What is a man supposed to make of tittering anyway? And when they all do it at the same time! It's frightening!" Louis Bramms, apprenticed printer and son of a prosperous horse farmer, has only one curse-his Aunt Myrtle, who is a matchmaking disaster waiting to happen. Louis, however, is more interested in books than pursuing love. He'd rather be riding or visiting his old friend Eilis with her hundred stories of magic and a missing husband who can charm wolves with his voice. Quaint stories that couldn't possibly be true. And not a tea party or eligible bachelorette in sight. But when a swathe of tragedies drives Louis to an abandoned estate on the edge of town, he discovers a girl-a monster-where no one has lived for two centuries. Old grudges are unearthed, dangerous spells reawakened, and Louis becomes trapped by his curiosity-spellbound in the enchanted manor, his fate tied to the beast who does not even remember her name.... So begins Shifted, an 18th-century telling of the unlikely love between a beauty and a beast. "Ah, you know me, Eilis dear. I can't leave well enough alone. It's been how many generations since I visited these parts? Nay....They've forgotten her again. And you know I'm not keen on being forgot."