Wise and the Wicked

Rebecca Podos, Lambda Literary Awardwinning author of Like Water, returns with a lush, dark, and unforgettable story of the power of the past to shape our futuresand the courage it takes to change them.Ruby Chernyavsky has been told the stories since she was a child: The women in her family, once possessed of great magical abilities to remake lives and stave off death itself, were forced to flee their Russian home for America in order to escape the fearful men who sought to destroy them.Such has it always been, Rubys been told, for powerful women. Today, these stories seem no more real to Ruby than folktales, except for the smallest bit of power left in their blood: when each of them comes of age, she will have a vision of who she will be when she diesa destiny as inescapable as it is inevitable.Ruby is no exception, and neither is her mother, although she ran from her fate years ago, abandoning Ruby and her sisters. Its a fools errand, because they all know the truth: there is no escaping ones Time.Until Rubys great-aunt Polina passes away, and, for the first time, a Chernyavskys death does not match her vision. Suddenly, things Ruby never thought shed be allowed to hope forlife, love, timeseem possible.But as she and her cousin Cece begin to dig into the familys history to find out whether they, too, can change their fates, they learn that nothing comes without a cost. Especially not hope.