Where It All Goes Down
Now and Then, Near and Far
The timeline of the story is a tad bit complicated, but we won't let it bake your noodle. Here's the deal: Briar Rose shifts back and forth between the present (in this case, the early 1990s, when the book was written) and various points in the past.
The first section of the book takes place in rural Massachusetts. Italicized flashback chapters show Gemma telling Becca the story of Briar Rose at various points during Becca's childhood. Meanwhile, the present-day chapters show Becca "decoding" the fairy tale to find out what happened to Gemma in real life.
In case that wasn't complicated enough for you, Becca also makes a quick trip to upstate New York to Oswego, the town where Gemma lived when she first arrived in the United States in the 1940s. That's just for one night, though. Don't sweat Oswego.
For the second part of the story, Becca travels across the pond to Poland to chase down some leads. There, the story also flashes back, but this time, we go all the way back to World War II, circa 1944, as Josef tells Becca his story. His tale is the real-life equivalent of Gemma's Briar Rose story, so there are no italics or comforting metaphors about a sleeping kingdom; there's just death and more death. Yikes.
The last leg of the story sends Becca back home to Massachusetts, with one last check-in with Gemma finishing up her version of the story.
Got it? Good.