Cordelia lives with her sorcerer mother Evangeline, who is extremely overbearing and abusive towards her daughter. She does a spell to make Cordelia obedient, which means she controls her actions and behavior. They are both poor, and after Evangeline's "benefactor" decides he no longer wants her, so she makes him obedient and has him murder his family, then she is determined to marry a wealthy man and finds a  bachelor squire who lives with his sister named Hester. Cordelia grows to care about them and with the help of Hester and some friends sets out to stop her mother from hurting and killing more people.

Like everything T. Kingfisher has written this did not let me down. It is a real page-turner and towards the end I did not want to stop reading. One specific image will live rent-free in my mind and I'm honestly fine with that. Also while this is a retelling of The Goose Girl, it is not necessary to have read that to enjoy this book.  This story gets 10/10 geese.