The sequel to Park's stunning fantasy debut, A Princess of Roumania.

Teenager Miranda Popescu is at the fulcrum of a deadly political and diplomatic battle between conjurers in an alternate fantasy world where "Roumania" is a leading European power. Miranda was hidden by her aunt in our world. An American couple adopted and raised her in their quiet Massachusetts college town, but she had been translated by magic back to her own world, and is at large, five years in the future.

The mad Baroness Ceaucescu in Bucharest, and the sinister alchemist, the Elector of Ratisbon, who holds her true mother prisoner in Germany are her enemies. This is the story of how Miranda — separated from her two best friends, Peter and Andromeda who have been left behind in the forests of an alternate America — begins to grow into her own personality. And how Peter and Andromeda are shockingly changed in the process of making their way to Roumania to find Miranda again at the end of this book.

"Young Miranda Popescu, spirited from her Massachusetts home by supernatural powers and guided by her sorceress aunt Aegypta's spirit, pursues her destiny as the 'white tyger' prophesied to save 'Great Roumania' from German domination in Park's lively continuation of the alluringly offbeat alternate-world saga begun in A Princess of Roumania (2005). Miranda's friends — Peter, who gradually transmutates into the charismatic Chevalier de Graz, and Andromeda, who shape-shifts as a stealthy yellow dog, a wily courtier and her own American self — attempt to rejoin Miranda in her quest, constantly harassed by evil Baroness Nicola Ceaucescu and the fearful German Elector of Ratisbon. Park fortifies his beautiful and baleful Roumanian milieu with deft characterizations and a clever ear for Balkan-spiced dialogue a shade shy of realism, while drawing on mythic resonances, like Roumania's skewed religion (Queen Mary Magdalene melds with Aphrodite). His long Roumanian rhapsody resembles the ambiguous gem of its title that holds the power to ignite love — it both glows coming-of-age green and empurples with the passion for power. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

In the sequel to Parks stunning fantasy debut "A Princess of Roumania," teenager Miranda Popescu is at the fulcrum of a deadly political and diplomatic battle between conjurers in an alternate fantasy world where "Roumania" is a leading European power.

PAUL PARK lives in North Adams, MA