This novel shows Antonia Michaelis moving in a bold new direction: a dark haunting contemporary novel that is part mystery part romance part melodrama. Anna & Abel couldnt be more different. They are both 17 in their last year of school but while Anna lives in a nice old town house her father a doctor her mother a literature professor at university. Abel the school drug dealer lives in the big cage-like tower blocks at the edge of town full of people without work without money without future. Anna is afraid of him until she finds a childs doll that he has dropped & in returning it to him realizes that he is caring for his six-year-old sister on his own. Fascinated Anna follows the two & listens as Abel tells little Micha the story of a tiny queen assailed by dark forces. Its a beautiful fairytale that Anna comes to see has basis in reality. Abel is in real danger of losing Micha to their abusive father an insistent social worker & to his own inability to make ends meet. Anna gradually falls in love with Abel but when his enemies begin to turn up dead she fears shes fallen for a murderer.