Crown of Stars

"Rumors of witchcraft have haunted Margaret ever since she was born. A strange, dark-eyed child, she was feared and then shunned by her medieval English village after her mother?s brutal murder. When her father remarries, Margaret--now a young woman--realizes that she must leave the village for good. Hundreds of years later, as fall comes to Manhattan, Katherine Emerson prays her horrific summer is over. She survived a killer?s attack, but her roommate Andrea was not so lucky and now Katherine is raising Andrea?s son, Lucas. However, the rest of her world is in ruins: the man she loves has left her and she?s pregnant with his child. She accepts she?ll be a single mother--until he insists on doing ''the right thing'', which means taking her and Lucas with him to London for his new job. Katherine hopes that maybe she too can start over. But starting over doesn?t mean that the disturbing and dangerous encounters with strangers will end. As Katherine begins to fall apart, Margaret?s fight to survive in a hostile world reveals she has inherited her mother?s extraordinary gifts, but will she use them for good or evil? Can Margaret change the destiny of Katherine and her unborn child? And what will happen if she succeeds?"--Amazon.com.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fantasy, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.