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Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | PB SCI_FI FANTASY SMI | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Too much imagination was tantamount to lying―that's what my grandmother taught me. So when I first got the sense that someone was following me, I ignored it. Who'd waste time following me?
Me, being Aurelia Kim Murray, a grad student from California with a passion for ballet and fencing, and a hopelessly romantic vision of the world. I had some to Europe to track down my grandparents' families, but so far I'd had no luck.
I couldn't explain the sense of urgency that drove me, even to myself. It has begun that day four months ago when my grandmother lay restlessly in her bed, her eyes glittering with fever as she gripped my hand. "Your mother is too gentle," she's whispered in her aristocratic Parisian French. "I cannot send her to steal the breach."
Breach? What breach? With her family? With my grandfather's family? Neither Mom nor I knew anything about Grandmother's family or the handsome man in the silver-framed photo that Gran always kept on her bedside table.
"She wouldn't talk about her life before California," my mom has said, as we waited in yet another specialist's office, hoping to find out why, though Gran had recovered from her fever, she had not spoken since.
Nothing had come of my search in Paris, or Vienna, and no matter how fast I walked along the grand boulevards, I knew I couldn't outpace my sense of failure.
And that's when I met my first ghost.
But seeing ghosts wasn't my biggest problem. I was being followed, and I was about to find out more about my lineage than I had ever imagined possible in my wildest, most fanciful dreams...or nightmares.
Author Notes
Sherwood Smith writes fantasy and science fiction for young adult and adults. She received a master's degree in history and worked for twenty years as a teacher. Her first book was Wren to the Rescue and she has written more than thirty books since then including the Exordium series with Dave Trowbridge and two of the books in the Solar Queen series with Andre Norton.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
History aficionado and champion fencer Aurelia Kim Murray investigates her taciturn grandmother's European roots and her own identity in Smith's sweeping, feminist Ruritanian romance. Kidnapped by Prince Alec Ysvorod, who mistakes her for his not-much-beloved fiancee, the slightly-too-perfect Kim is thrust into the complicated and potentially deadly politics of a small, haunted kingdom threatened equally by its neighbors as by its scheming ruling families. Smith (Inda) engages readers with humor and rapier-sharp wit, and extensive details from Central European history (right down to a 19th-century method of stamping coins) make the nation of Dobrenica terrifically real. Though readers who prefer lightning-paced books may stumble over long sections of expository conversations, a lively heroine, mysterious ghosts, and a complex and intricate plot always get the action going again. (Sept.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
Booklist Review
Smith's modern-day fairy tale, influenced by the current urban-fantasy rage, finds 23-year-old Kim traveling across Europe to learn about her grandmother's mysterious past (Grandma has becomes terribly ill and refuses to speak). Kim's questions are much more dangerous than she realizes after she is kidnapped in Budapest. Taking matters into her own hands, she travels to the little-known Eastern European country of Dobrenica; there she not only uses her language and fencing skills but also accepts her ability to see ghosts. With two darkly attractive men (not to mention her grandmother's secret husband) pursuing Kim, the romance plot is nicely woven into the story, both its contemporary and past components, along with plenty of action and adventure. Enough plotlines are left unresolved that at least one sequel must be in the works. Highly recommended for all fantasy and general-fiction collections, as the potential readership is wide, from urban-fantasy readers looking for something lighter but still complex to young women who grew up reading the Princess Diaries series.--Moyer, Jessica Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Aurelia Kim Murray, a graduate student descended from a family who fled Austria before World War II, travels to Europe to investigate the mystery of her heritage, sparked by the fevered behest of her beloved and mysteriously ill grandmother. In Vienna, Kim encounters her first "ghost" along with an attractive stranger who seems to follow her and who embroils her in the dangerous politics of a country she never knew existed. In her latest novel, Smith (Inda; Treason's Shore) pits a modern-day woman against the intrigues of a past century. VERDICT Recalling The Count of Monte Cristo and The Prisoner of Zenda in plot and theme, this cross-world fantasy/romance should appeal to YA and adult fans of the genre. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
