A while ago one of my best friends, Daisy, suggested that a read a book entitled The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. Her recommendation did not disappoint. She was also the same person who in middle school turned me on to the "Jessica Darling series" after I had read Sloppy Firsts ... which still remains one of my favorite books today.
Percy Parker is unlike The Night Circus in that both set out to be beautiful, romantic, tense, adventurous, and fantastic ... but this Strangely Beautiful Tale actually accomplishes those goals. The last two novels I've read - this and The Night Circus - both start out in the 1800's, and so the tale of a young girl named Percy takes place in Victorian England and that is precisely what it feels like. Unlike the "Victorian" story about a magical circus, this book is immediately captivating and enchanting.
Starting out with the back story of The Guard, we hear how six children were somewhat possessed by people past and brought together to keep the balance going between the world of the living and that of the dead. Their charge is to keep the ghosts and the humans blissfully unaware of each other and content in their respective worlds. Not only can they see ghosts, but each of the original six has a special power that renders them imperative to The Guard's success. Their only problem is a prophecy that someday a seventh will join them, but they must be careful as to who that is and not let the wrong one in ... oh, and they cannot actually talk to the ghosts they see, which when picking a seventh would be extremely helpful.
On the other hand we flash forward about 18 years and we meet the ghostly-looking girl whose skin is like porcelain and white hair and crystalline eyes are shocking. She can speak to ghosts. She has visions. And you can guess pretty quickly she's going to be their seventh, even if they don't know it yet. She comes to Athens Academy - a Quaker school where she can study among both men and women (a novelty in the Victorian age), but she constantly gripes about how she looks and people tend to stare at her somewhat albino-like visage.
Here's where things get tricky for Miss Percy Parker. Not only can she talk to the dead but she has an affinity for languages and can usually start speaking them fluently upon hearing them only a few times. She, unfortunately, stinks at mathematics and alchemy. This leads to her requiring private tutoring lessons from the foreboding but beguiling Professor Alexi Rychman. Alexi is the leader of The Guard and is on constant lookout for their potential seventh, their Prophecy. He believes to his core that the seventh must be someone he will fall in love with, and his lessons with the strange and timid Miss Parker start to lead him down a path he is unsure of and somewhat unwilling to explore.
If you give this book a shot you will be drawn into the peculiar but indeed spectacular and inexplicable tale of a strange and beautiful woman. The book is filled with heroic and immense details that immediately pull you into the London world where the dark is constantly battling the light. At times it is cheesy ... as it also provides a theory that is way out of this world for who (or what) Jack the Ripper was. The dialogue between Percy Parker and those around her is sometimes extremely awkward and pulls you out of the moment - especially because she is constantly bemoaning how she looks and is unconvinced that she is anything other than repulsive. Her self-consciousness and insecurity is sometimes at the least, annoying, and the dear Professor Alexi often has to shut her whining down. Her constant appraisal of her looks irritated me, but not enough to stop loving the book itself.
On another note, comparing this to The Night Circus, the enchanter who "raised" Celia and forced her into the competition of her life was called Prospero for his stage name, and in The Strangely Beautiful Tale, Alexi's horse is called Prospero and is not the best enchanter of his time, but he is apparently the best horse in London. Apparently those British folk really feel a connection to Shakespeare.
If I'm getting back on track, another interesting twist in this tale is that Percy is actually short for Persephone. The Greek goddess who is repulsed by pomegranate seeds - as it was these that connected her to the God of the Underworld - Hades - who kidnaps her and forces her to be his bride. This becomes a major plot point in the novel. "Persephone, Greek goddess, bound to the underworld after digesting pomegranate seeds offered her by Hades ... Why, Miss Persephone Parker, there must be more to your story than you know yourself." Just like the goddess herself, Percy has a strong aversion to pomegranate seeds. Personally, I love them ... but I suppose there's never been a theory that I'm a reincarnated goddess either ........
The last, but maybe most important, point that I need to make about this sometimes beautiful yet harrowing book is that it is currently out of print. That's right ... in order to get it though you can easily find it on Amazon or the Barnes and Noble marketplace. I bought this book for about $6, and just purchased the sequel (yes there's a sequel!) for around the same. Apparently this book was published by a company called Dorchester Publishing, and apparently Dorchester does not pay its authors so it has unfortunately closed. The author, Leanna Renee Hieber, is trying to get her rights back and resell I believe. Until then, happy hunting! It's worth the search.
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