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Summary
Summary
Anne Michaelson is trying to forget everything that happened last year. But it's hard to do when her heart aches for Ethan and there's a wild-haired woman stalking her...
Ethan Kosinsky is embracing his newfound mortality. But something is drawing him back to the girl he left behind--back to Anne and back to the magic...
A mysterious stranger is hunting Anne wherever she goes. No one sees her but Anne. When she searches for the woman's identity, Anne exposes secrets about her own life-- things that will change her life forever. And when the gorgeous Ethan returns, her life gets a lot more complicated.
Anne thought her journey with the Romanov family had ended, but it was just the beginning...
Praise for Dreaming Anastasia:
"A ride of paranormal fantasy, contemporary and historical fiction, with a little bit of romance. It's the perfect blend."--Examiner.com
"Dreaming Anastasia is a story of love and loss on many different levels. It was a wild, fun, and sweetly romantic ride."--Galleysmith.com
"An intriguing tale of magic, tragedy, love, and betrayal...Be prepared to fall into this story...Lovers of fantasy and romance will not be disappointed..."--YABooksCentral.com
Author Notes
Joy Preble grew up in Chicago and later moved to Texas. She has an English degree from Northwestern University and she teaches English to high school kids. She can be found online at www.joypreble.com
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-After rescuing the Grand Duchess Anastasia from Baba Yaga in Dreaming Anastasia (Sourcebooks, 2009), Anne Michaelson is eager to put aside thoughts of both magical destinies and of Ethan, the former magician who regained his mortality when Anastasia was returned to her historical fate. But no amount of focusing on her normal life in modern-day Chicago or her new boyfriend can drive away Anne's conflicted feelings for Ethan, or her own increasing magical powers. Baba Yaga still haunts her dreams, while during the day, Anne is haunted by a strange, wild woman (eventually identified as a rusalka, a Russian water spirit), who begs the teen to help her. Ethan's return soon brings things to a head, and Anne must sort out the rusalka's role in her family history, figure out what Baba Yaga requires of her, and decide which boy she really wants to be with. Themes of destiny, loss, and sacrifice run heavily through this tangled tale, with Anne's brassy friend Tess providing a welcome lighter note. Not a stand-alone read, this is very much a middle chapter to the trilogy, with most of the action focused on elaborating past events or establishing the set-up for future ones. Consider purchasing where the first book has a following.-Christi Esterle, Parker Library, CO (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
The will and desires of 17-year-old Chicago high-school student Anne, a mysterious, wild-haired Russian rusalka (mermaid demon), and the infamous Baba Yaga collide in a complex story of love, betrayal, and revenge. This convoluted sequel to Dreaming Anastasia (2009) has a few pacing problems that may bog readers down, and the choice to have the story bounce among several narrators makes for choppy and occasionally confusing reading, but the love triangle and the standoff between supernatural creatures involve characters that readers will come to care about. Knowledge of the first book is very helpful but not essential.--Welch, Cind. Copyright 2010 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
Tuesday, 1:13 am
Anne
In my dream, I sit at Baba Yaga's table. One of her huge brown hands stirs something in the kettle hanging in the fireplace. The other creeps across the smooth wooden floor on its fingertips, a roughly crafted robin's-egg blue pottery mug hooked to its huge pinkie finger. This is gross and unsettling, and if I were awake, I'd probably say so. Detached hands offering people beverages is-generally speaking-rather icky. But I'm not awake. At least, I hope I'm not.
"Drink," Baba Yaga says to me. "If you want to control the power that sits in your veins, then choose to drink." The sleeves of her long, brown cotton dress flap emptily as her hands go about their business.
"No," I tell her. I shiver as I watch those empty sleeves. "I'm not yours. You have no hold on me, Baba Yaga. I'm not Anastasia. I'm Anne. Whatever you're offering, I don't want it."
"Oh, child," she says. Her mouth turns up in a hideous smile. Those iron teeth glint at me. The wrinkles in her dark face are etched so deeply that I wonder if they pain her somehow. It's as though they dip right inside her face. "You have no idea what's coming. No idea what you're giving up."
"I don't care," I tell her. "Whatever it is, I don't want it."
She's still laughing at me, her gravelly voice filling my head, when I wake up, my camisole soaked with sweat. I tell myself to breathe-just breathe-and lie there in the darkness under my ceiling fan until my heart stops pounding and the cool air takes the heat from my skin.
I sit up, fumble on my nightstand for my cell phone. The blue glow makes me blink as I flip it open and scroll to Ethan's number. My fingers hover there. Press? Don't press? Tell him? Don't tell him? It's a routine I've been going through night after night now that the dreams are back. I know I should call. Let me know if you need me, he always says. He checks on me once a week. Lately, he asks, Is there something going on? You need to tell me, Anne.
And maybe because he doesn't press me, doesn't call me out on what I'm sure he knows is a lie, I keep it to myself. I think about the few times that we kissed-that first time in the rain when Anastasia went back to die, and some others before he left. Tentative kisses that spoke of something more to come. The feel of him, the musky smell of him. Those crazy, ridiculous blue eyes. But then he left. And if he's coming back, he hasn't said. What kind of silly girl would I be to think those kisses meant the same thing to him? Better to move on. Better to keep things to myself.
So I don't tell him that things are getting weird again. Maybe they've never stopped being weird. If I tell him the truth, then I'll have to admit that the magic inside me hasn't let up one bit. And since this scares the hell out of me, it's a lot easier to lie.
But right now in the dark, with my heart still erratic, I imagine myself fessing up. Funny thing, Ethan. Those powers you said would go away now that Anastasia didn't need saving anymore? Well, they haven't. I'm juiced up to the max most days with this stuff lurking inside me. But Anastasia's dead for real now. So what use is this magic to me? And why aren't you here to help me figure things out?
Maybe that's why he left in the first place. Not to find himself or wander Europe. I mean, I get that. He was immortal for so long, and now he's not. He needs to know what that means. But maybe his journey took him that far, and now he's just done. Easier to bolt than to commit to the craziness again. Or to a girl he's known for just a few weeks. No matter how much they've been through together.
But I'm having these dreams again, and Baba Yaga hasn't let me go. I'm as much her prisoner as Anastasia ever was-I'm not stuck in that creepy hut, but I end up there night after night anyway. If it's not real, it feels real. And if I've learned one thing about all this magic business, it's that those two things are pretty much the same.
I don't know what she wants. Okay, that's a lie. I don't want to know. Whatever it is she thinks I can do or wants me for or hopes I'll stumble into-I don't want any part of it. And who else can I tell that to except Ethan? But then I remember that I've told him that before. Only it didn't really matter. When you're destiny girl, you don't get a lot of choice.
This is what I ponder while I sit here in the dark in the middle of the night. This and the fact that I probably bombed some of my final exams last week, and that summer's beginning, but I'm not exactly in a summery mood. Outside my window, some early-rising bird squeaks out a chirp. Just one lonely little eep, and then it's gone. Phone still in my hand, I walk to the window. The cool glass feels good as I press my forehead against it.
"Liar," I say to myself. "Go ahead. Blame everything on him."
Because here's the real truth: as much as I hate the chaos that Ethan Kozninsky brought with him when he smashed into my life last fall, I don't hate him. Not at all. And I won't say that I love him. But I won't say that I don't either. What I will say-just not to him, and definitely not to Tess because she'd get all judgy even though she's my best friend and certainly has had some major lack of judgment of her own-is that I can't get him out of my thoughts. Dreaming or waking, he's always there somewhere. I've told myself that's ridiculous. But telling it to myself doesn't make it true. Since he's been away, I've felt empty and alone and incomplete. And no matter how much I do to push away those feelings, they just keep coming back.
Serious neediness. Not something to make a girl feel proud. So I toss the phone on my nightstand, climb back into bed, draw my knees to my chest, and hike the covers up to my chin. It's not just the dreams anymore, I know. Or my more-than-slightly-conflicted feelings for one absurdly handsome, blue-eyed Russian. It's what I saw just now when I peered out into the darkness of our supposedly boring little Chicago suburb. It's the other thing I haven't mentioned to Ethan...
She was out there again, barely noticeable in the flicker of water from the Spauldings' sprinkler that comes on in the middle of the night. Just like last night, when she was leaning against the oak tree a few houses down during that thunderstorm. The same woman who'd stared at me silently a few weeks ago as she sat at the edge of the duck pond near our house, her tattered lilac dress soaked, her hair a mass of wild black waves. The woman who sometimes has a fish tail and sometimes has legs. The one who seems to be stalking me.
I close my eyes. I won't sleep, but at least I'll rest. If she's out there still, I won't go look. If this is all starting again, I don't want any part of it.
Only I'm pretty sure that once again, I don't have a choice.