Author: Flavia Bujor
Publisher: Miramax Books
Rating: WORTHY!
The Prophecy of the Stones shortly to be followed by its sequel, The Prophecy of the Beatles! (I may have made that up). On a serious note, I also have reviewed Nancy Yi Fan's Swordbird which is another novel written by a young writer - in this case younger even than Bujor.
This is rather an amazing novel at least in the one sense that it was written by a girl who was thirteen at the time she began writing it. That's an impressive feat, so how could I not check it out? The story is actually a dream of a sick and perhaps dying girl in modern day Paris, and it relates the adventures of three girls (curiously all the same age as the sick Parisienne, and also as the author was when she began this novel!).
The three girls are named after gemstones. Amber, the girl who was raised on a farm, Jade, the girl who was raised by a duke, and Opal, the girl who was raised in a village by a rather feared old woman. There's no mention of whether they ever meet up with Ruby Red...! None of the girls was raised by her own parents. On the night of their fourteenth birthday, all are given the stone after which they're named and told that they must trust no one and must leave home that very night to meet the two other girls. Oh, and one more thing: everyone should be considered an enemy, including the other two girls! When they meet under the specified tree out in the wilds they must, after midnight, open the bag and take out their stone. Unfortunately, Opal has already accessed hers, not long before, and not even knowing what it was.
So oddly enough, even after all this, they do indeed meet, and they're suspicious of each other, but nothing odd happens and they eventually agree to work together to try and find out what the deal is with these freaking stones. They plan to spend their first night in an old barn which is frankly disgusting to Jade, so she visits the farmhouse and demands to be put up there! She also demands sufficient food for the next several days' travels, and she gets everything she asks for! The three of them decide they need to go to Nathyrnn to meet a guy who supposedly can tell them about the prophecy of the stones.
When they arrive at the city, they are in turn introduced to a knight from the land of Fairytale who they ask for advice. They decide that the only way to break the stranglehold of the Council of Twelve on the land is to get into Fairytale, a forbidden magical land which is walled off with a force-field. They proceed to breach the wall despite their government's dire warnings against such an action, and despite a virtual army waiting on the border. Nevertheless, they decide that fear is the enemy and they simply rush the soldiers, and almost all of them get through into Fairytale! Unfortunately, Opal dies, but fortunately, Death is on strike in Fairytale, and so Opal cannot die.
The trio continue with their quest to find a wise woman in Fairytale who will impart the knowledge they need to overthrow the council's iron-rule. Naturally, the council wishes to terminate the girls' power and so they launch an unprecedented invasion of Fairytale. The girls eventually find the woman and discover that they have to visit Death herself and talk her out of her strike...!
So what to do with this novel? Read it! This is a worthy read. Yeah, it's simplistically written and a bit bizarre, but I've read a lot worse novels by more mature writers who should know better. Those writers need not be encouraged. A writer like Bujor? She's needs to be brought on-board with all speed.
