The Storyteller

With the mystery of Maureen Johnson and Brittany Cavallaro and the historical intrigue of Romanov, this genre-bending YA will pull readers into one girl’s journey of discovering the impossible tale of a long-lost aunt—and through her, the importance of being true to yourself.
It’s not every day you discover you might be related to Anastasia…or that the tragic princess actually survived her assassination attempt and has been living as the woman you know as Aunt Anna.
For Jess Morgan, who is growing tired of living her life to please everyone else, discovering her late aunt’s diaries shows her she’s not the only one struggling to hide who she really is. But was her aunt truly a Romanov princess? Or is this some elaborate hoax?
With the help of a supremely dorky but undeniably cute local college student named Evan, Jess digs into the century-old mystery.
But soon Jess realizes there’s another, bigger truth waiting to be revealed: Jess Morgan. Because if she’s learned anything from Aunt Anna, it’s that only you can write your own story.\nFrom School Library Journal\nGr 9 Up-Jess Morgan takes lying to herself to a whole new level, twisting herself into knots to fit in and please others. To those around her, she is a cheerful, upbeat, fun-loving high school girl with a boyfriend. In reality, she is incredibly introverted, easily overstimulated, and burned out by day-to-day life. She prefers reading or writing alone in her room to most social interactions. While helping her mom clean out a great-aunt's attic, she stumbles across diaries in a foreign language. With the help of a local college student studying Russian, she secretly translates the diaries and uncovers an incredible mystery as to the possible identity of Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov. As Jess unravels the lost woman's words, will she find a way to tell her own true story? Told in alternating chapters between present-day Jess and the mystery writer from the early 20th century, this is a book that will sit with readers, making them question what exactly is a person's truth. The author's note at the end gives further detail about the Romanovs. Characters are cued as middle-class and white. VERDICT This excellent, engaging mystery is a first purchase for school and public libraries.-Kristen Rademacherα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.