The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Hieber

From the Publisher

What fortune awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy? Hidden in the dark heart of Victorian London, the Romanesque school was dreadfully imposing, a veritable fortress, and little could Percy guess what lay inside. She had never met its powerful and mysterious Professor Alexi Rychman, knew nothing of the growing shadows, of the Ripper and other supernatural terrors against which his coterie stood guard. She saw simply that she was different, haunted, with her snow white hair, pearlescent skin and uncanny gift. This arched stone doorway was a portal to a new life, to an education far from what could be had at a convent-and it was an invitation to an intimate yet dangerous dance at the threshold of life and death...

Publishers Weekly

Six young men and women are called to protect the living world from the dead in Hieber's Gothic romance debut. Mysterious powers give Alexi and his peers the mission of keeping the restless dead in line and seeking a prophesied seventh guardian. Miss Percy Parker, an albino orphan with a talent for languages, fills none of their expectations, but Alexi is drawn to her all the same. Hieber draws Victorian London as beautiful and grim, with depictions of Jack the Ripper as a nightmarish many-headed hound alongside charming descriptions of the Athens Academy, Percy's boarding school, and Greek mythology that smartly draws together various elements of the story. The supporting characters are nuanced and appealing but given short shrift by the narrow focus on Percy and Alexi, though future sequels may give them more room to play. Hieber's debut shows great potential, and readers will want to revisit her intriguing world.
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Tempting Persephone

...it was thrilling to be engaged in a book that kept me reading well past 1 a.m., that got me out of bed not long after to begin again. And that, of course, means that I will absolutely be reading the next book, and the one after that and so on.

Book Reviews by Jess

This book's plot was perfect... The story was completely original.

Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show

Its pages are like the petals of a rose: a many-layered tale gorgeously told...It is a historic, dark, fantasy mystery... A simple dance raised more goosebumps on my arms than the steamy scenes in most of the usual romance novels of today.

Suspense, mystery, and the paranormal are all rolled into a historical novel with a gothic flair that will entice the reader and leave her wanting more... Ms. Hieber is an artist that puts her art into words.

What People Are Saying

M. J. Rose
"A compelling, engaging novel that drew me in from page one. Bravo!"--(M. J. Rose, bestselling author of THE REINCARNATIONIST and THE MEMORIST)

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