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    The Tourmaline
    The Tourmaline
    The Tourmaline
    Ebook516 pages8 hours

    The Tourmaline

    By Paul Park

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The sequel to Park's stunning fantasy debut, A Princess of Roumania.
    Teenager Miranda Popescu is at the fulcrum of a deadly political and diplomatic battle between conjurers in an alternate fantasy world where "Roumania" is a leading European power. Miranda was hidden by her aunt in our world. An American couple adopted and raised her in their quiet Massachusetts college town, but she had been translated by magic back to her own world, and is at large, five years in the future.
    The mad Baroness Ceaucescu in Bucharest, and the sinister alchemist, the Elector of Ratisbon, who holds her true mother prisoner in Germany are her enemies. This is the story of how Miranda -- separated from her two best friends, Peter and Andromeda who have been left behind in the forests of an alternate America -- begins to grow into her own personality. And how Peter and Andromeda are shockingly changed in the process of making their way to Roumania to find Miranda again at the end of this book.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJul 11, 2006
    ISBN9781466839373
    The Tourmaline

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    Reviews for The Tourmaline

    3.5/5

    37 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Paul Park expands his unique (almost thrillingly so) YA series with The Tourmaline. Free from the need to set-up his complex and exhaustive world, the book has a stronger narrative - though one deployed mostly in heaving its protagonists onto ever stranger shores, literally and metaphorically. Caught by devious sorceries, Miranda Popescu - the messianic "White Tyger" of Roumania - finds herself flung from a parallel-universe America all the way back to her eastern European homeland. Left behind, geographically and in other ways, are her two friends Peter and Miranda - both housing the uneasy souls of Miranda's long-gone bodyguards. If the previous book in the series was a novel of discoveries, then this is one of journeys - yet much is nonetheless revealed. I really thought this book was terrific. It's confounding in many ways; not just because of its dream-like qualities, but also because - whilst it has all the trappings - it's really not typical Young Adult literature. Park doesn't just add texture to familiar debates about good and evil, he demonstrates how arbitrary the line is before obliterating it completely. He questions the very idea of monarchy and saviours; at the same time he questions the inherent nobility of democracies. Most of all he captures the oft-times contradictory, vulnerable, and very human emotions that control us more often than we control them. The result is compelling, and almost sneakily disquieting at times - especially coming from a genre with very familiar tropes and generally limpid morality. In that context, The Tourmaline is a very political novel. It's also a very sensual novel; this isn't just a helter-skelter narrative with some kind of self-discovery metaphor stitched into it. Park shows us the plastic boundaries between interior and exterior states.The best demonstration of this lies in the book's maturity. YA novels frequently have protagonists plunged into an - unjust - world that is too complex and mature for where they come from. An understandable albeit obvious metaphor for adolescence. Park does that, too, but the difference is that it's not the world that's complex and mature; it's the characters first and foremost. The fact that the two ostensible villains of the book (adults, both) get nearly as many pages - and as much reader sympathy as the teenage protagonists - highlights this.His originality also shines through in the alternative Europe of "Roumania". No cod-medival knights for him, nor any gear-fetish steampunk blah. Roumania is multifaceted; it presents different qualities when viewed from different angles and it is glittering with original concepts and conceits; all shot through with a nod, a bow, a curtsy or a wink or an out-thrust fist to historical or mythological precedent. It is so much more sophisticated and interesting than what we're used to seeing, within the genre - and largely without, I have to say.I was so impressed to see someone write something so ambitious and mature - it's like if Thomas Mann was rewriting Narnia. The Tourmaline's splendid characterisation leaves me aching for its lonely heroes and villains, and looking forward very much to the next book in the series.
    • 3/5
      This book continues the tale begun in A Princess of Roumania in which a young woman named Miranda Popescu learned she was hidden away in our world but is a princess caught amidst political intrigue in an alternate *real* world where Roumania is one of the world's superpowers and is busy fighting off the advances from Germany in a Victorianesque era. The goings-on get even stranger in this second book (of a quartet) and we follow the exploits of Miranda and her friends Peter and Andromeda. Peter is actually a renowned soldier named Pieter de Graz and Andromeda is really a (male) soldier named Sasha Prochenko. But in this story she morphs from a dog to a young woman. Miranda also ventures into the hidden world while conjurers like the Baroness Ceausescu and the Elector of Ratisbon put their own plots into play. It sometimes gets confusing only to clear up later and I enjoyed the real sense of strangeness in this story. It's always interesting and I'll be reading the follow-up soon. It's called The White Tyger.
    • 3/5
      Not all alternate history is of the classic mold. You know the drill. Lee wins at Gettysburg, and the world is different because of it. Varus' legions aren't slaughtered by the Germanic tribes, and Rome continues on and on. The Spanish armada conquers England, and Shakespeare turns out to be a hero to the oppressed English. The Roumania novels are definitely different. The first novel, a Princess of Roumania, started ordinarily enough, with Andromeda, Peter and Miranda slowly discovering that their modern day New England world was in fact, an illusion, an artiface. The real world is very different, where Roumania is a major power with magic at its command, and a vicious conflict between Germany and Roumania only part of the complicated politics. The second novel takes up from the first and continues the stories of Miranda, Andromeda and Peter as they start to learn their real identities, and their destinies, in Roumania. Throw in one of the most complex and multi-sided antagonists I've read in fantasy, the Baroness Ceaucescu, a slow reveal of more of what this alternate "real" world is like, and mix well.It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Its been a while since I read the first novel, and like when I read the first novel, it took me a while to get used to Park's dream-like style and characterizations. You really have to pay attention to the prose, and go with it, and even then, things aren't always crystal clear. And I am pretty sure its a feature, not a bug.I certainly would never start the series with this book. But those who liked the first novel should and will likely enjoy the second.

    Book preview

    The Tourmaline - Paul Park

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