Ghost Dance: The Czar's Black Angel

Price (The Ghost Drum; Ghost Song) again crafts a rich, vivid fantasy about spirits and ghosts and the realms through which they travel. Set in a fictional region that resembles northern Russia during medieval times and narrated by a mystical cat, the story focuses largely on Shingebiss, an apprentice shaman. A shapechanger, she seeks to keep the evil Czar from spoiling the natural beauty of the Northlands, but first she must contend with his deceitful English wizard, Master Jenkins. While Shingebiss ultimately deposes the Czar, the price is steep-the country is thrown into political chaos, and Jenkins's timid assistant is killed. The sweeping, almost poetic descriptions of the netherworlds and the interactions between spirits and humans are both haunting and compelling, and although the climax is a bit crowded, the story is charged with dramatic momentum. A writer with an impressive range and an expansive imagination, Price has truly mastered her idiom. Ages 10-up. (Oct.)