Bronze

The story of Bronze is a twist on the well-known fairy tale of Beauty & the Beast. You are "Beauty" and have returned to the castle. But all is not well.
There's a castle of 54 rooms to explore, and by examining rooms, objects and consulting books you slowly piece together the story of what's happened to the Beast, and figure out what to do about it.
It really captured the feeling of exploration which makes the genre so great. Ms.Short's writing is really top notch, and the puzzles are logical and well-thought out.

Bronze is especially recommended for beginners: a special GO TO command let's you instantly walk to any room you've been before, there's a novice mode, and the built-in hint system is very helpful: it reminds you what your goal is and what items are of interest at the moment. You can THINK ABOUT an item to get a clue about what you can do with it, however, if there's something else you need to do first it doesn't give you the clue (yet). A lot better than a blunt walkthrough.

About the only negative thing I can say about it is that it did crash a lot while using Windows Frotz 1.07. I recommend using Gargoyle to play it.