Princess Of Roumania

This is a truly magical tale, full of strangeness, terrors and wonders. Many girls daydream that they are really a princess adopted by commoners. In the case of teenager Miranda Popescu, this is literally true. Because she is at the fulcrum of a deadly political battle between conjurers in an alternate world where "Roumania" is a leading European power, Miranda was hidden by her aunt in our world, where she was adopted and raised in a quiet Massachusetts college town.

The narrative is split between our world and the people in Roumania working to protect or to capture Miranda: her Aunt Aegypta Schenck versus the mad Baroness Ceaucescu in Bucharest, and the sinister alchemist, the Elector of Ratisbon, who holds her true mother prisoner in Germany. This is the story of how Miranda -- with her two best friends, Peter and Andromeda -- is brought back to her home reality. Each of them is changed in the process and all will have much to learn about their true identities and the strange world they find themselves in.

This story is a triumph of contemporary fantasy.

"No one writes like Paul Park, and when he turns to magic, the results are magical." Karen Joy Fowler

"A vastly ambitious and passionately realized work of art...immediately appealing...A huge achievement." John Crowely

"Complex, elusive, haunting, written in a transparent prose that slips you from one world to another with prestidigitous ease."

Ursula K. LeGuin

Praise for Princess of Roumania:

"No one writes like Paul Park, and when he turns to magic, the results are magical. A Princess of Roumania is weirder and wilder than any fantasy you've read before and even those elements which might have been familiar -- a princess, a werewolf, a jewel, a gypsy, magic and murder -- are transformed into strangeness. Park's characters, incidents, and images will stay with you long after you've finished this book."-Karen Joy Fowler

"A Princess of Roumania is at once a vastly ambitious and passionately realized work of art, and immediately appealing in all the ways that the heart-tugging matter of high fantasy ought to be. Park's Miranda is as brave and questing as a heroine of fantasy should be, and his Baroness Ceaucescu is a fascinating portrait of unstoppable evil that is never more or less than appallingly -- even appealingly -- human. Every page of this book holds something you couldn't have imagined and yet that strikes you as supremely right and satisfying. A huge achievement."-John Crowley

"Complex, elusive, haunting, written in a transparent prose that slips you from one world to another with...ease"-Ursula Le Guin

"I love it! I think it's wonderful."--Elizabeth Hand

"A superb new fantasy, the first in what I hope will be many books in a series."-Ed Greenwood

“Paul Park knows fairy tales, contemporary and classic fantasy, and literary science fiction, and he borrows tropes from all these genres. So readers will find, as they enjoy this long novel (the first volume of two or more), that it provides the pleasures of the familiar—indeed, the archetypal—without neglecting some twists and enigmatic variations all its own. At times, though, its bound to remind you of the Harry Potter books, Phillip Pullmans novels about Lyra Belacqua and even Gene Wolfes recent The Knight and The Wizard, as well as such older classic as The Wizard of Oz, Joan Aikens Dido Twite chronicles and even Philip K. Dicks classics as The Man in the High Castle. But then all these works draw from the same well of fantasy, the same pool of dreams and nightmares.”

--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World on A Princess of Roumania “In less-capable hands, the plot of the missing princess would seem trite, but Paul Park makes A Princess of Roumania unique. . . .The result is a powerful novel that should appeal to adult and sophisticated young adult audiences. . . .the stage is set for a terrific series. I cant wait for the next installment.” -Rocky Mountain News, Grade A-

 “Elegantly imagined and densely poetic novel . . . . we may be looking at one of the major fantasy works of the decade.” Gary K. Wolfe, Locus on A Princess of Roumania  “Could become one of the most engrossing fantasies ever written. . . .The opening pages have a sustained brilliance it is extremely difficult to convey; they comprise perhaps the most taxing and densely intricate exegesis yet put to paper. . . .The story so far of A Princess of Roumania is intense, contorted, distorting, hypnotic; it seems deeply though-and felt-through—as far as we are allowed to follow it. It is a book . . . to read in a deep silent room, so you dont miss a word.” --Interzone

 "It's a journey almost as gratifying as the magic trick pulled off by Park, who should be knighted for breathing life into an oft-tired genre." -Entertainment Weekly on A Princess of Roumania

"Complex, elusive, haunting, written in a transparent prose that slips you from one world to another with prestidigitous ease, A Princess of Roumania is a quietly and profoundly original novel. To compare Paul Park with Philip Pullman or John Crowley gives a hint of the kind of satisfaction his fiction provides."--Ursula K. Le Guin

"Many of those of enjoyed the works of Philip Pullman or Madeleine L'Engle will be thrilled to discover A Princess Of Roumania."--Kim Stanley Robinson

"Immediately appealing in all the ways that the heart-tugging matter of high fantasy ought to be. A huge achievement."--John Crowley on A Princess of Roumania

"Paul Park knows fairy tales, contemporary and classic fantasy."

The Washington Post

"A powerful novel that should appeal to adult and sophisticated young adult audiences."

Rocky Mountain News

"Elegantly imagined and densely poetic novel . . . . we may be looking at one of the major fantasy works of the decade."

Locus

"Could become one of the most engrossing fantasies ever written."

Interzone

"Immediately appealing in all the ways that the heart-tugging matter of high fantasy ought to be. A huge achievement."

John Crowley

"Park. . .should be knighted for breathing life into an oft-tired genre."

Entertainment Weekly

"Those of enjoyed the works of Philip Pullman or Madeleine L'Engle will be thrilled to discover A Princess Of Roumania."

Kim Stanley Robinson

PAUL PARK lives in North Adams, MA