The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne Duprau

The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne Duprau -- 289 pages

The Prophet of Yonwood is the third book in the series The City of Ember. Instead of picking up at the end of the second book (The People of Sparks) it goes back in time to 11 year-old Nickie who lives in the modern time, the world as we know it.

She travels with her aunt to the town of Yonwood, and begins to get familiar with the people and the legends that circulate there. A women there, whom they call "the Prophet" has seen visions of fire and calamity, and now as she lays ill in bed, they try to interpret her mutterings.

While Nickie explores the old house she is staying at, and meets new friends around town, the Prophet is giving instructions, and the people are going to all lengths to do what she says.

I did not like this book nearly as much as the first two, but it answers a few questions as to what happened to make the world how it is in the first two books. But I feel like those answers were thrown in the back simply as a way of connecting them, and I would have been happy to skip over this book and move on to the fourth.