This week I'd like to (once again) welcome a very good friend of mine, Sheila from One Person's Journey through a World of Books!
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From Amazon.com...
"What really happened to Anastasia Romanov?
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 gnarled 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…"
What would you do if your nightmare turned out to be more than just a dream—and the only way to stop it was to believe the impossible? Anastasia Romanov knows she should be dead; she watched her family fall in a hail of gunfire. Instead, something, or someone, saved her. Trapped and scared in a magical hut with a witch who may be friend or foe, she begins to come to grips with the truth about her situation: that some fates are WORSE than death.
In her dreams, sixteen year old Anne Michaelson is somewhere else. She is someone else. The dreams feel as real as her waking life and they terrify her. This is not good for her social life! Aside from that, Anne thinks her life is pretty ordinary – until she runs into handsome, mysterious, and (okay) annoying Ethan on her way to chemistry class. Now Anne has powers she doesn’t understand, a history-altering mission she doesn’t want, and a growing attraction to a blue-eyed stranger that seems to be stalking her! And when Ethan realizes that Anne is the girl he’s been searching for, things start to get a little surreal! Despite her skepticism and reluctance, Anne quickly realizes that you don’t need to be imprisoned to be trapped! Stir in the doomed Duchess Anastasia, who is not quite as dead as the history books say, and the Baba Yaga, a legendary witch from Russian folklore, and you’ve got Dreaming Anastasia by debut novelist Joy Preble.
Joy Preble’s experience with Russian legends developed through her crazy maternal grandmother, who had been one of TWENTY children! The story goes that her grandmother’s family didn’t even notice when she ran off to America at sixteen, married badly, raised four children on her own and was the least grandmotherly of grandmothers a girl could ever hope for (despite her amusing and insane tales of the Bolsheviks and tsars). No warm and fuzzies there, only admonitions for Joy to eat her vegetables so she would be strong enough to survive the impending pogroms!
My Thoughts: This book was a wonderful mix for me – not only as a YA read – but to me it dabbled in so much more. There is history to this book with Baba Yaga and Anastasia Romanov. There is the taste of fantasy and the essence of mystery…. basically it had a lot of my favorite genre’s all roled up into one neat little binding.
I have to say I loved the story line based around Baba Yaga (I love folklore!)
I would rate this a PG13 rating for some language
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Thank you so much Sheila! I hadn't heard of this book! It sounds like a great intriguing read that I will most definitely be adding to my TBR list! Thank you so much!
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