What if the classic fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk was never a heroic adventure-but a dark, drunken hallucination in a twisted alternate dimension? In this gripping dark fantasy thriller, we finally uncover what really happened after the beanstalk crashed and the Giant fell to his death.
Jack Hubbard...degenerate gambler, tavern barfly, chronic alcoholic (and quite possibly an unreliable narrator) returns to us three years after his brief prison sentence-broke, desperate, and drowning in debt to the ruthless underworld.
Not only has his gambling addiction returned his Old Mother Hubbard to poverty, he's now eight weeks delinquent to his lone shark, Gia, the Chief Enforcer of Tess Rothman...matriarch of the oldest and most powerful organized crime family in the entire realm.
Faced with the threat of his own death on one side, and the possibility of passing on his insurmountable debts to his longsuffering mother on the other, Jack returns to the apothecary who first gave him the magic beans.
Hoping to barter for any solution, the last thing he expected was another opportunity to climb back into the Realm of Giants - that gold mine in the sky.
But the world above the clouds is nothing like the children's story. Confronting the devastated Giant's Widow, Jack discovers shocking truths about the biohazard he left behind (the rotting corpse which stretched over the plains for six square miles), the surreal dimension he stumbled into while blackout drunk, and a mysterious figure named "Cyndi" whose reality feels both alien and hauntingly familiar.
Facing the truth of his actions three years ago, will Jack choose redemption ...or will his addictions doom everyone around him?
A suspenseful and wildly surreal deconstruction of a beloved fairy tale, this adult sequel blends gritty crime, psychological tension, interdimensional mystery, and moral dilemmas. Perfect for fans of ABC's Once Upon a Time, or Disney's Maleficent and Cruella.
