by Paul Park
First published 2008
Miranda Popescu lives the ordinary life of a teenager in a Massachusetts college town. She has no idea that her daydreams about royal blood are actually memories. Miranda is truly a princess from an alternate world where Roumania dominates European politics. Her aunt Aegypta Schenck smuggled her to our reality as a baby to protect her from deadly enemies. In Roumania, conjurers wage war over Miranda's fate. The mad Baroness Ceaucescu hunts for her in Bucharest while the sinister Elector of Ratisbon imprisons her real mother in Germany. When forces from her birth world finally reach Miranda, she must return to Roumania with her best friends Peter and Andromeda. The crossing transforms all three teenagers in unexpected ways. Miranda faces the truth about her identity while navigating the magical terrors and political dangers of a world she barely remembers. She must learn to survive in a place where sorcery shapes nations and her very existence threatens the balance of power.
Genres: historical-fiction, fantasy, young-adult, alternate-history
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: chosen-one, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Roumania, Massachusetts, Bucharest, Germany
Period: alternate-world
469 pages · Library Binding · Paw Prints 2008-04-18