The Prophecy of the Gems

(Paperback)

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Description

A magical and captivating debut fantasy novel from young French author of fourteen years. Three young girls, Jade, Amber and Opal, each from very different backgrounds, discover on the day of their fourteenth birthday that they are adopted. An ancient prophecy compels them to leave their families to complete their mission in a far-off kingdom. Each girl is given custody of a magic stone which corresponds to her name. Although they dislike each other on sight, they have to overlook their differences in order to escape the dangers that threatens them. They begin a long voyage to Oonagh, the mysterious oracle who becomes their guide. Their quest will lead them into a ferocious battle against the forces of evil. Present day! In a Parisian hospital a fourteen-year-old girl is dying. Joa no longer speaks, nor fights for her life, but she dreams and her thoughts carry her into a fairy-tale world where three heroines lead an epic war. The distant promise of their victory and the end of their adventures carries with it a secret which could return to her the will to live!

Reviews

"Enchanting" Telegraph "A teenage literary sensation" Telegraph "A must for anyone who enjoys fantasy" Write Away Website "A cool-read" cool-reads website

Author Bio

At 14, Flavia Bujor was hailed as France's literary sensation. Flavia was born in Romania on 8th August 1988 and moved to Paris when she was two with her psychoanalyst mother and sculptor father. From an early age, both encouraged her love of books, teaching her to read before she started school and indulging her passion for stories by telling her Romanian fairy tales and Shakespeare's plays. She was writing poems by the age of six. She started writing her debut novel, The Prophecy of the Gems, when she was just 12. She wrote it in instalments, giving friends chapters as they were finished. A mother of one of these friends showed the manuscript to a French publisher, Anne Carriere, who snapped it up. It has been a phenomenal success, selling over 20,000 copies in France and a first print run of 60,000 in Germany. The Prophecy of the Gems will be published in the UK by HarperCollinsChildren's Books in February 2004. Flavia is thrilled about this, saying, "I'm verrrrry excited that my book is being published in England. I love this country!" This autumn she started at Louis Le Grand secondary school, one of the best schools in France. She plans to participate in all sorts of extracurricular activities - the school newspaper, the piano club and the theatre club. An accomplished pianist, Flavia wanted to become a concert pianist when she was younger and she still competes in national contests. Flavia's favourite school subjects are History, German and English. She reads avidly, and especially likes Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, Steinbeck and Victor Hugo - she reads in French, English and German. She enjoys all the normal teenage pursuits and loves hanging out with friends and going to parties, concerts and the cinema. She says, "I'm still just a teenage schoolgirl who prefers to spend most of her time with her friends." Flavia loves travelling and every summer she takes a linguistics course in an English or German-speaking country; this summer she went to Malta and next year she hopes to study in Oxford. After her A levels, she would love to spend a year studying in England.