J.M. Sidorova with Daryl Gregory — 'The Witch of Prague'

Third Place Books welcomes author J.M. Sidorova to our Lake Forest Park store for a conversation about her new book, The Witch of Prague — a magical-realist antiauthoritarian fantasia exploring autonomy, agency, and coming of age in a time of revolution. Daryl Gregory, author of When We Were Real, joins in conversation.

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About The Witch of Prague. . .

In Cold War Czechoslovakia, dyslexic teenager Alica escapes her troubled home by answering a newspaper ad. Instructed in typing, deportment, and political intrigue by a forbidding older woman with a long history of manipulating powerful men, she becomes a secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she's surrounded by surveillance, corruption, and rancid abuses.

When her mentor gifts her an ancient tapestry with mysterious properties, Alica finds herself haunted by dreams of a violent hunt and a mutilated forest. By day, her powers of manipulation are only growing-and around her, the currents of resistance are beginning to electrify the country. As her city teeters on the brink, Alica must uncover the power that only she can wield.

A work of magical realism set during the 1968 Prague Spring, The Witch of Prague is a book about bodily autonomy and the fight against authoritarian regimes everywhere.

J.M. Sidorova was raised in the USSR, Singapore, and Germany, and spent most of her adult life in the United States, where she has been working as a biomedical research scientist and writing speculative fiction. Her novel The Age of Ice, two parts history, one part magic realism, received an honorable mention in Tor.com’s best fiction of 2013 list. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Daryl Gregory is a Seattle writer whose novels and short stories have been translated into a dozen languages and have won multiple awards, including the World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Crawford awards, and have been short-listed for the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, and other awards. His latest novel is When We Were Real (April 2025), published by Saga Press / Simon & Schuster. His seven other novels include Revelator (a Washington Post book of the year), Spoonbenders (an IndieNext pick), and Pandemonium. Other books include the novellas The Album of Dr. Moreau and We Are All Completely Fine, and the collection Unpossible and Other Stories. He also teaches writing and is a regular instructor at the Viable Paradise Writing Workshop.

About Third Place Books

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events