Skip to main content

Quick Review: "Dreaming Anastasia" by Joy Preble

From Goodreads: Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college--until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams...

My Thoughts:  I have been wanting to read this book for a long time and I'm so glad I finally got to it!  It was definitely a fast and fun read.  I loved how the author took the historical Anastasia and made her part of a really neat paranormal story.  I have always been incredibly fascinated by all of the stories surrounding Anastasia and  I think this one puts a really cool spin on it.  There isn't a lot of true history in the story but I still really enjoyed it.  I also enjoyed how she wove a lot of Russian folklore into the story.  I don't know much about Russian folklore so I don't know how true she stayed to the old stories but I still thought it resulted in a great mix of history and folklore with a paranormal twist.  

The author added some interesting aspects to the historical part of the story; she created an illegitimate son of Tsar Nicholas II and included a mysterious and magical Brotherhood whose goal was to protect Russia from the forces that were tearing it apart.  I thought these additions worked well and made the story even more interesting.  All of the characters were unique and made me love the story even more.  This is the first book in a trilogy and I really can't wait to read the next one!  4 stars. 

This book is part of my personal collection.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: "Oleanna" by Julie K. Rose

Synopsis:  Set during the separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905, this richly detailed novel of love and loss was inspired by the life of the author's great-great-aunts. Oleanna and her sister Elisabeth are the last of their family working their farm deep in the western fjordland. A new century has begun, and the world outside is changing, but in the Sunnfjord their world is as small and secluded as the verdant banks of a high mountain lake. The arrival of Anders, a cotter living just across the farm's border, unsettles Oleanna 's peaceful but isolated existence. Sharing a common bond of loneliness and grief, Anders stirs within her the wildness and wanderlust she has worked so hard to tame. When she is confronted with another crippling loss, Oleanna must decide once and for all how to face her past, claim her future, and find her place in a wide new world. My Thoughts:   I was very surprised by what an absolutely beautiful story Oleanna is.  The ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review and Giveaway: "Distant Signs" by Anne Richter

Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mailbox Monday (49)

It's time for another Mailbox Monday post!  Once again I could not resist the cheap ebooks that Amazon and Barnes and Noble were promoting this week.  I really need to stop!  I already have more than I can read.  I also was able to spend a little time browsing at the library and I came home with a nice stack of books.  These days, I hardly ever get to spend time at the library by myself for more than a minute or two so it was wonderful to have time to just wander and see what I could find. Purchased (for kindle): The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford The One I Was by Eliza Graham House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty   Purchased (for nook): One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore  Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams From the Library: The Messenger by Daniel Silva   The Ripper's Wife by Brandy Purdy Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Brazen by Katherine Longshore What books did you get...
15 comments
Read more