A Lovereading4kids 'Great Read' you may have missed 2011 selection.
Prize-winning Jennifer Donnelly’s spell-binding tale spans two contrasting worlds separated by two hundred years but linked by a teenager’s thrilling quest to save a young prince. To get over the tragic death of her brother, Andi is taken off to Paris by her father. Soon she is swept back in time into the chaos and terror of the French Revolution where she becomes the mysterious and courageous Alexandrine. How present day Andi comes to terms with her own problems through her understanding of another’s is a heart rending story shot through with romance. Jennifer is the author of the hugely successful and prize winning A Gathering Light.
Andi lives in New York and is dealing with the emotional turmoil of her younger brother's accidental death. Alex lives in Paris and is a companion to the dauphin, the young son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, during the violent days of the French Revolution. When Andi is sent to Paris to get her out of the trouble she's so easily enveloped by in New York, their two stories collide, and Andi finds a way to reconcile herself not only to her past but also to her future. This is a wrenchingly beautiful, evocative portrait of lives torn apart by grief and mended by love.
Praise for Jennifer Donnelly's first novel for young adults, A Gathering Light: 'A sensitive, powerfully written first-person narrative ... a striking first novel that will haunt readers long after closing the book The Bookseller
'This novel is the very definition of all-consuming . Mattie is a heroine on a par with Jo in Little Women or Cassandra in I Capture the Castle . Donnelly captures period and place with almost supernatural skill, and even the most minor of characters are so vivid that you find yourself talking out loud to them' Sunday Telegraph
'Reminiscent of many American writers from Alcott to Voigt. This is a wonderfully involving novel, beautifully constructed and immensely rewarding' Lindsey Fraser, Guardian Praise for Revolution:
'Intelligent, absorbing and original ... my book of the month - if not the year' Fiona Noble, The Bookseller
Author
About Jennifer Donnelly
Jennifer Donnelly lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter and two greyhounds. She grew up in New York State, in Lewis and Westchester counties. As a child, she loved to write and often inflicted really dreadful poems and stories on her family and friends. She loved to read, too, and the high point of her grade-school week was a Saturday trip to the library.
