Kicking Some Faerie Ass

Upon losing his job as an assistant barrel bunger, Joe Smoe-noe, resident of East Sussex in Queen Victoria's England, sets out on a one man mission to kick some Faerie ass, in retaliation for the misery of losing his job...well, he's drunk. Once inside Faerie, after crossing the Wall, a magical bridge to another world, Joe encounters a poor, beautiful, and extremely ditsy Esmeralda, who appears to have lost her way after dropping into Faerie in search of flowers "cuz they looked so very purty."

Esmeralda, however, is not as dumb as Joe looks, but a trained Faerie ranger and assassin, who finds the Human's appearance more of a distraction than a threat, because she is far more concerned with the monstrous creatures that the Black Witches have stirred up: the Wargs, the giant snake Serpenta, and the Hoged-nosed Barbarians, who wish to destroy the Faerie cities and the Faerie way of life, guided by the evil Skeleton King, who is immortal and who's flesh has in appropriately all rotted away.

One slight difficulty Essie faces before cutting off Joe's head is that she falls for him and his stupid generosity, and soon the two are sent off on a mission to visit and subjugate three of the most dangerous of the Black Witches at the peril of their sanity and their lives, in order that Faerie and Human might wed.