The Gypsy Crown

Emilia Finch and her cousin Luka are gypsies. For them, that means they live a strongly traditional life, rich with story, music, dance, and magic, governed by the laws of the clan and the ways of the road. To the repressive Puritanical government of 17th century England, however, the gypsies are thieving, fortune-telling vagrants who are most likely allies of the devil.  

While the Finches have managed to steer clear of trouble, it finds them when they decide to raise dowry money for one of their daughters, by performing in Kingston square one ill-fated market day. A series of terrible events lands the family in jail, charged with murder. Only Emilia and Luka manage to escape, promising to bring back help and free them.

The only problem is -- how? Emilia believes in the legend of the charms: it is said that the luck of the Rom has turned sour ever since a long-ago gypsy matriarch broke her chain of charms, giving one charm to each of her five children. Since then, the gypsies have been persecuted and the families have dispersed. If they can gather the charms from the families, Emilia thinks, the strong magic of the Rom will somehow bring her family freedom. Luka, on the other hand, is more practical – he wants to enlist the help of the other clans to help the Finches escape.

Emilia and Luka must race through the countryside, navigating a hornets' nest of Rom-hating Puritans, Royalist spies, and traitors, if they are to complete their quest before the magistrate delivers a death sentence…

 

In seventeenth-century England, cousins Emilia and Luka travel with their Rom (Gypsy)  families to town, where they perform, hoping to earn some money in spite of Baba’s  prophetic warning of trouble ahead. True to Baba’s insight, the group is arrested, jailed, and then sentenced to hang by Rom-hating Puritans. Only plucky, devious, intelligent Emilia and Luka escape. Luka is determined to gather their Gypsy relatives across England to lay siege on the prison, and Emilia hopes to find the charms that Baba predicts will string the Rom good fortune back together after years of bad luck. Carefully woven into this exciting adventure story is the fascinating and horrifying recounting of the Puritanical religious fervor that cast a net of persecution over anything or anyone secular, including the joyous, rambling Rom. This chilling period in English history is documented in a final chapter, but it is illuminated as only fiction can through the exciting, mud-splattered, often violent adventures of Emilia and Luka. Grades 6-9. --Frances Bradburn