Jolene

The beloved Elemental Masters series moves to America for the first time in a rich retelling of The Queen of the Copper Mountain, set against the backdrop of Tennessee coal country. Anna May Jones is the daughter of a coal miner. When her father succumbs to Black Lung, the coal company wastes no time in turning the family out of their home. In desperation, Anna May's mother sends her to live with her Aunt Jinny, a witchy-woman and an Elemental Master, in a holler outside of Ducktown. As she settles into her new life, Anna May finds herself falling for a stonemason with such a talent for stonecarving that people come all the way from Memphis to commission statues and tombstones from him. But he's not content with his current skill--he wants to learn to carve stone so well it looks real. When the stonemason disappears on a quest to fulfill his ambition, it is up to Anna May to follow and find him, armed with the new abilities Aunt Jinny has taught her. To save the man she loves, Anna May must journey into the mountain--and confront the horrors that lurk in the darkness of the mine.

Praise for the Elemental Masters series

“Lackey’s fantastical world of Elementals, plus her delightful Nan and Sarah, create an amusing contrast for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and John Watson…. The mix of humor, history, fantasy, and mystery is balanced in a way that any reader could pick up the book and thoroughly enjoy it from beginning to end.” —RT Reviews

“The Paris of Degas, turn-of-the-century Blackpool, and the desperation of young girls without family or other protection come to life in a story that should interest a broad readership.” —Booklist

“All in fine fairy-tale tradition.... It’s grim fun, with some nice historical detail, and just a hint of romance to help lighten things.” —Locus

“The action and dialogue flow freely, mingling with beautiful descriptions of European countryside and just a hint of romance.... A well-developed heroine and engaging story.” —Publishers Weekly

“The fifth in the series involving the mysterious Elemental Masters, this story of a resourceful young dancer also delivers a new version of a classic fairy tale. Richly detailed historic backgrounds add flavor and richness to an already strong series that belongs in most fantasy collections. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

“The Elementals novels are beautiful, romantic adult fairy tales. Master magician Mercedes Lackey writes a charming fantasy.” —Worlds of Wonder

“Ms. Lackey is a master in fantasy, and this visit to an alternate historical England is no exception. Vivid characterization and believable surroundings are flawlessly joined in a well-detailed world.” —Darque Reviews

"I find Ms. Lackey's Elemental Masters series a true frolic into fantasy." —Fantasy Book Spot

Autorentext
Mercedes Lackey is a full-time writer and has published numerous novels and works of short fiction, including the best-selling Heralds of Valdemar series. She is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator.

Leseprobe
1The sun shone thinly through the ever-present smoke and dust above the coal-mining town of Soddy; it should have been warm, but Anna May huddled in Ma’s darned and discarded shawl as her hands busily shelled peas. She was almost always cold, except when other people were fanning themselves, opening their collars and complaining about the heat. From where Anna May sat on her Pa’s porch, if you raised your eyes above the roofs of the clapboard houses across the dirt street, and squinted just a little, the haze that never left the air of Soddy looked pretty instead of dirty, and the hills and the tops of the trees outside of town were like something in a dream.   She didn’t dare daydream, because Ma would be after them peas before too long. She druther look at the trees just past the roofs of town, concentrate on shelling, and try not to listen to Ma and Pa inside, argumentin’.   Ma had set her to shelling the peas she’d picked out of the garden, and told her to go out on the porch to do it. She knew what that meant. It meant Ma was going to have something to say to Pa as soon as he got back from the coal mine, and she didn’t want Anna to hear what it was.   That was what she always did whenever she wanted to give Pa a piece of her mind. The two-room house was too small for anyone to keep anything private. The bedroom in the back barely had room enough for Ma and Pa’s bed, the washstand, and the clothes chest, and when Anna’s narrow trundle under the big iron bedstead was pulled out for sleeping, there was hardly room for a mouse to pass. And the main room was just as cramped, what with the deal table, the three stools, the iron sink, the cupboard for the food, two mismatched chairs at the hearthside, and the cast-iron cookstove. She supposed the cookstove was a blessing, though it took up so much room and needed such careful tending. All the Company-built cabins had cast-iron stoves; people didn’t burn wood ’round here, they burned waste coal, and the Company reckoned that what with coal soot building up in the chimbleys faster than wood did, there was a bigger fire risk with an open hearth than with a coal stove. After all, the Company didn’t want its investments burning down.   There wasn’t much at all pleasing to look at here in Soddy itself. This dirt street they were on was all Company houses, clapboard two-room Company-built cabins all alike, all originally whitewashed, all of them gray and dingy with the soot that came out of the coke ovens. That soot was everywhere, and it was worse in winter, when everyone stoked their little coal fires (in freehold cabins) or coal stoves (in the Company houses) all day long and most of the night. Soot and coal smuts were just a part of life in Soddy. You couldn’t never get anything clean, or at least, it didn’t stay clean for long, no matter how hard you tried. Wash left hanging out was gray by the time it was dry, even if you bleached it until your hands burned, iffen you could afford the bleach. Even if you could afford to whitewash your house every spring, by early summer it was gray again. Folks coughed and sneezed a lot, but the Company said all that coughing was prosperity.   She tried not to breathe too deeply, because that always set off her coughing bad, but there weren’t nothing good here in town to smell anyway. Nobody that had a garden wasted space and compost on flowers. And some people, naming no names, didn’t keep their privies as clean as Ma did.   She dreamed most nights of running out of town, down to the Lake, all the way to Soddy Crick, or just out to them trees, where things was green and there must be the wonderful scents of green grass and flowers, and she could walk in the grass or paddle in the Lake’s edge. She’d never in her life done that, even though them woods was only a few streets away. When she was little and couldn’t help around the house and garden, Ma had tied her to the table to keep her from toddling off or touching the hot stove. Maybe Ma had done that because she’d tried to run off to the woods even back then, when she couldn’t get down the porch steps without crawlin’ down ’em; she obviously couldn’t remember. But as soon as she was old enough to hold a rag, Ma had put her to work, like every o…

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