The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad (“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share” —Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia’s most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor.
Debra Dean is the bestselling author of I Wake Up Barking and four other critically acclaimed books that have been published in twenty-one languages. Her debut novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, among other accolades. Debra and her husband live in Miami, where she teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program at Florida International University. They share their home with Ellie, a dog of indeterminate breeding who came in off the street fourteen years ago and rescued them.