'Cold Iron is set in a fairytale world---a kind of parallel Elizabethan period. It is based on the English fairytale Tattercoats (which is a kind of Cinderella story) and Shakespeare's beautiful play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. It enters the fairy kingdom of Titania and Oberon, and takes the reader into the vivid world of Elizabethan England. Tattercoats is the neglected, beautiful grand-daughter of the rich Baron of Fisher Forest, who is inconsolable because of his daughter's death in bearing Tattercoats. Her father has gone away; and so the only friends Tattercoats has in the world are the servant girl Malkin and Pug, a lame, flute-playing gooseherd. One day, the Baron receives an invitation to go to the birthday ball of the Earl of Malmsey, at Elizabeth's court; and Tattercoats desperately wants to go. But her grandfather does not want to let her. It is up to Malkin and Pug to find a way.' (Source: Sophie Masson)