I’ll admit two things first: 1) I put off reading this one for far too long, and 2) the first time I opened it and read the first few pages, I just wasn’t immediately drawn in. There was a princess, and I had not assumed that there would be princesses in this book.
THEN, the second time I picked it up, I kept reading, and realized that the princess in question was not simply a fairy-tale princess from some fantastical land, but in fact an alternate-universe version of the story’s protagonist: Sasha Lawson, from Chicago, USA, Earth. Her analog is Princess Juliana of Columbia City, UCC, Aurora. And the UCC is no fairy-tale world, but one very much like our own except for the fact that the past 200 years of their history has unfolded a bit differently from ours.
Why should Sasha care? Well, at first, she doesn’t even know Aurora exists. She lives with her gruff but loving grandfather, and is fairly content with her life, and then things get even better when her longtime crush Grant suddenly and surprisingly…asks her to prom. Prom night is awesome.
And then things get WEIRD. One minute Sasha’s on the beach having the night of her life, and the next minute she’s waking up in totally foreign surroundings. Oh, and Grant’s not Grant, but his Aurora analog, Thomas. Sasha, dead ringer for the Princess, is immediately plunged into the deep end of a potential political firestorm.
IMPORTANT LESSON, KIDS: Getting whisked off to a mysterious land where you’re suddenly the princess is not all it’s cracked up to be.
I ended up really enjoying this book; I do like alternate-universe scenarios and while I am still having trouble with the idea that you could have a near-perfect analog in another universe but NOT have the same parents, if you can suspend that niggle of disbelief, it’s a suspenseful story of intrigue, complicated relationships, and the importance of upholding your personal integrity. And there’s a Book 2, Tether, which is out now.
I purchased my copy of this book as a Kindle ebook. You can find TANDEM (Many-Worlds) by Anna Jarzab at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!
