Praise for the Work of Michaela Roessner





The Stars Dispose

Starred Review"Rarely has Renaissance Florence seemed more vibrant than in this delectable historical fantasy from Roessner. Focusing on the Befanini family of pastry-makers and sauciers, the novel serves up the trials and tribulations of the cooks for, and protectors of, a pre-adolescent Caterina de Medici as she develops from a pawn of the pope and the Florentine nobility into a royal force to be reckoned with. Roessner has done an exquisite job of preparing a feast for the literary palette... "

Publishers Weekly

"For grace and wit linked to both fantasy and the historic past, try Michaela Roessner's The Stars Dispose. You'll find a fine repast awaiting you... two more volumes follow, so we can regard this as a first course that satisfies to a degree, yet leaves one hungering for more."

Locus

"Historically precise, culinarily evocative, and fantastically inventive, Michaela Roessner's writing will sweep you into the mazelike streets of Florence and the ominous tension of sorcerous conflict."

Amazon.com

Vanishing Point

"What if 90 percent of the population Vanished overnight, inexplicably and without a trace? This extraordinary novel explores the social arrangements that arise afterward, the psychological impact on various survivors, and the strange anomalies that begin to appear, especially in children born after the Vanishing. At times Roessner's glorious prose is as strange as a dynamic M.C. Escher drawing, but the novel is so well-rooted in place and character that the reader can soar without getting lost."

The Feminist Bookstore News

"Roessner's hardcover debut — part scientific puzzler, part social projection, part mutable-reality shocker — explores an intriguing conjecture: What if 90 percent of the human race, selected utterly at random, suddenly vanished without a trace? Thoughtfully conceived, convincingly and elegantly developed, with solid female leads and a splendid conclusion. Deeply satisfying."

Kirkus Reviews

Walkabout Woman

"Walkabout Woman is indeed a daring and innovative first novel... Beyond its setting, the strength of this work lies in its vivid depiction of the relation of the Dreamtime to 'real life', in the characterization of Raba, and in the incisive parallel drawn between the loss of the Welsh Annwyn and the impending fate of the aborigines... it is a book to be read, and then read again."

Book Review Annual

"This engrossing first novel follows Raba, a gifted Native Australian girl, through her apprenticeship as a wuradilagu, healer, into a necessary flight into the white-fellas academic world. The evocation of the Dreamtime is particularly vivid. Highly recommended. "

The Feminist Bookstore News

"Michaela Roessner's Walkabout Woman has got it all: clean, lyric prose; a fascinating 'alien' setting juxtaposed with a contemporary one; and a guise of Mystery not often seen before. There is a power in Roessner's prose and a simplicity that's as beguiling and deceptive as that of her subjects themselves.... it provides the reader with a thoughtful, as well as entertaining read, and allows the epilogue to acquire a poignancy that's both uplifting for how things work out in this otherworld, and a sadness that it won't do so in this one."

OtherRealms