The Veil of Gold
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Adult fairy tales don't come any better than this."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When an ancient gold bear is found walled up in a dilapidated St. Petersburg bathhouse, researcher Daniel St. Clair and his frosty colleague Em Hayward set out for the university in Arkhangelsk to verify its age. Along the way they are mysteriously set adrift. Maps are suddenly useless. Lost and exhausted they turn north, sinking even deeper into the secrets and terrors of the Russian landscape.
Daniel's lost love, the wild and beautiful Rosa Kovalenka, fears the worst when Daniel goes missing and resolves to find him. To do so will mean confronting her past and secrets that she has fought to suppress. The only way to save him is to go forward, where she encounters the haunted Chenchikov clan, a family with their own shadowy tangle of grief, desire, and treachery.
In the unknowable, impenetrable Russian forest, Rosa meets an enigmatic wanderer who is full of tales and riddles of times past. Who might hold the key to Rosa and Daniel's future--or the destruction of their world.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aurealis-winner Wilkins (The Autumn Castle) refracts Russian history through a brilliantly jeweled kaleidoscope of folklore in this sparkling tale. Papa Grigory, a powerful shape-shifting creature who claims intimate familiarity with Russian celebrities from Konstantin to Rasputin, narrates the story of the Golden Bear, a magical statuette. When human enchantress Rosa Kovalenka finds the Bear hidden in the wall of a Russian bathhouse, the Bear sends Rosa's lover, Daniel, and his boss, Em Hayward, to Skazki, the fabled "land of enchantments." There they struggle to survive encounters with mythic Russian creatures banished across the veil centuries ago by foolish humans. Rosa must learn to use her magical inheritance and solve the riddle of the doomed Snow Queen to save her human friends and keep Skazki from oblivion. Wilkins's human characters are endearing and her mythic monsters spring into vibrant life. Adult fairy tales don't come any better than this.
