In Which I Give a Tiny Dreaming Anastasia spoiler!

Kathryn Fitzmaurice's paraphrase from Dreaming Anastasia

At lunch while in Chicago, my bestest pal Kathryn Fitzmaurice (alias KFitz; alias author of the lyrical and lovely The Year the Swallows Came Early), who'd been reading part of the ARC of Dreaming Anastasia in the car while I drove, scrawled what she claimed was her favorite line from chapter one on our paper table cloth. I'm sure if the bus boy knew how amazingly famous and beloved I was, he would not have crumpled it up when he cleared our dessert plates. But that, my dear readers, is the mercurial nature of fame. (heh!)

Line actually reads: "I understand now what it is to be hidden like that - so tucked away that no one even knows I am here." It's Anastasia speaking, and she's telling us some of what has happened to her. She's referring to a matroyshka doll - those Russian nesting dolls where the large doll contains its smaller version, each nested inside each other, smaller and smaller, all hidden and tucked away. Don't want to be too spoilery this morning, but I will say that the doll, and the metaphorical idea of the doll - which is what Kathryn was so excited about - figures prominently in the story. Or at least prominently enough that at one point I know there was discussion among people who aren't me but are the ones who have control over things like covers , that a matroyshka doll might work for the cover. Obviously that's not what we went with. And I do very much love what we did go with; I think the artist got it just right. That longing and desire and sadness and mystery - all the things I hope readers will find in Dreaming Anastasia - just like Anastasia herself implies in that quote.

Til next time...