The Katerina Trilogy, Vol. I: The Gathering Storm
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
VOYA said "Bridges could become a worthy successor to Libba Bray with this historical fantasy."Lush and opulent, romantic and sinister, The Gathering Storm, Vol. I in the Katerina Trilogy, reimagines the lives of Russia's aristocracy in a fabulously intoxicating page-turning fantasy.
St. Petersburg, Russia, 1888. As she attends a whirl of glittering balls, royal debutante Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, tries to hide a dark secret: she can raise the dead. No one knows. Not her family. Not the girls at her finishing school. Not the tsar or anyone in her aristocratic circle. Katerina considers her talent a curse, not a gift. But when she uses her special skill to protect a member of the Imperial Family, she finds herself caught in a web of intrigue.
An evil presence is growing within Europe's royal bloodlines—and those aligned with the darkness threaten to topple the tsar. Suddenly Katerina's strength as a necromancer attracts attention from unwelcome sources . . . including two young men—George Alexandrovich, the tsar's standoffish middle son, who needs Katerina's help to safeguard Russia, even if he's repelled by her secret, and the dashing Prince Danilo, heir to the throne of Montenegro, to whom Katerina feels inexplicably drawn.
The time has come for Katerina to embrace her power, but which side will she choose—and to whom will she give her heart?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The ideal reader for Bridges's sprawling debut would have a love of Tolstoy and an infatuation with Twilight perhaps an improbable combination. Determination is certainly required to track the mutable Russian proper names and family connections of an enormous cast, all of which must be understood to follow the plot. Katerina is a young duchess in an alternate-universe czarist Russia, a corrupt society secretly governed by Dark and Light Faerie courts. Katerina is an unwilling necromancer, able to raise the dead, a secret she has kept from everyone until a threat to the czarevitch, Nicholas, forces her to act and thereby reveal herself to the Montenegrins, rumored to be witches and worse. All of that is before the vampires and bogatyr (a powerful warrior-czar) come into the picture it requires every bit of the book's 400 pages to lay out the relationships, politics, and myth that will drive the rest of the planned trilogy. Bridges is up to the task, though, and for readers who appreciate a challenge, she delivers an imaginative, complex blend of history and magic. Ages 12 up.
Customer Reviews
A fun read!
I really enjoyed The Gathering Storm. If you like urban fantasy or historical fiction you should definitely check it out.