When Leigh Stein received a call from an unknown num­ber in July 2011, she assumed it was from her ex-boyfriend Jason and let it go to voice­mail, telling her­self she was done with him for good this time. When she final­ly lis­tened to the mes­sage, it was from Jason’s broth­er: Jason had been killed in a motor­cy­cle acci­dent. He was 23 years old.

When Leigh first met Jason, he was a 19-year-old com­mu­ni­ty col­lege stu­dent, hand­some and charm­ing as he was trou­bled. She blew all her sav­ings to move with him to New Mex­i­co, a place nei­ther of them had ever been before and where they knew no one — and where Jason’s behav­ior went from play­ful and spon­ta­neous to con­trol­ling and errat­ic, even­tu­al­ly esca­lat­ing to phys­i­cal abuse. Leigh fled, and while out­ward­ly it appeared that she had moved on, Jason con­tin­ued to haunt her.

Land of Enchant­ment explores the heart­break­ing com­plex­i­ty of why the per­son hurt­ing you the most can also be impos­si­ble to walk away from, what it means to be drawn to some­one so destruc­tive, and how to rec­on­cile dif­fi­cult mem­o­ries of the past while try­ing to forge ahead into a health­i­er, hap­pi­er life.