Reviewed by Stacey Agdern
Publisher: Dorchester
5 Stars

What makes a good writer is how they choose to tell the substance of their story; in essence, the style of their work. The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker can be commended not only for it’s substance, but it’s style as well.

Leanna Renee Hieber makes a conscious choice to tell the majority of Percy’s story in the limited third person perspective of two of the main characters:  Percy herself, and Mr. Alexi Rychman, the intended hero.  But in limited third person, as with first person, a writer is restricted to knowledge that their point of view character has.  That means that a great deal of events are taking place outside of either character’s point of view.  And in most cases, this information is vital to a reader’s understanding of the story itself.  So what does a writer do?

At the core of ‘The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker’ lies a group of six diverse people, who have been given extraordinary powers, and have been charged with saving the world from evil.  They  follow a prophecy that includes finding the seventh member of their group… who may, or may not be,  Miss Percy Parker.  As a result, Leanna Renee Hieber has a group of reliable secondary characters (and an unnamed villain) which she uses as POV characters in order to broaden the reader’s understanding of the characters and their circumstances.   Take this scene, told in the perspective of Rebecca, a secondary character and member of the ‘Guard’ the group that plays a large part in Percy’s story.

“Only a few new students,” Rebecca replied, oblivious.  She shifted uncomfortably, thinking of Miss Parker.  “One girl is startlingly unique.  Must have some sort of condition, poor thing.  Deathly pale skin, the whole of her white as snow.  Glasses shaded her pale eyes, which, through their glass, appeared almost violet.”

“You’re certain she’s mortal and not Luminous?” Michael asked, again twirling his mustache.

“You think I can’t tell the difference?  Still, it is eerie to see a living girl so similar.  And the spirits gaze at her so.  Perhaps they are just as curious.”

Up until this point, if a reader is without context, they would have no reason to think that Percy is anything more than self conscious.  Without that all important historical context, a reader sees Percy from her own perspective, where she blushes and remarks on her own oddity.  But the genius of Hieber’s writing lies here, in a simple excerpt of dialogue, where someone, who is able to see ghosts, and therefore should know better, still sees Percy in the guise of Victorian England, as an ‘oddity’ a ‘poor thing.’
This technique helps Hieber tell this ‘Strangely Beautiful’ tale the best way that she can.  It is an intricate story, and she tells it well.  I cannot wait to see what Leanna does next.

One of the most interesting things about the tale, is Percy herself.  In fact, I’ll be profiling Percy Parker on August 29th as part of Heroines week here on RNTV.  It starts tomorrow with Kati Dancy’s profile of Payton Kendall from Julie James’ Practice Makes Perfect.