Gateway
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4.2 • 6 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of The Shapechanger’s Wife comes a captivating time-traveling story, where the line between past and present blurs.
Adopted from China and raised in St. Louis, Daiyu is used to feeling a little out of place, a little restless. But what kind of adventure is there in the Midwest? One day, while she’s at a city fair near the Gateway Arch, Daiyu spots a gorgeous black jade ring, and when the elderly vendor tells her that “black jade” translates to “Daiyu,” she impulsively buys the ring and wears it as a token of her heritage.
It is much more.
Daiyu walks through the Arch on her way home. She never gets there. Instead, she passes into another world, another version of St. Louis—where almost everyone is Chinese.
Now she has more adventure than she could ever have imagined. Taken to a safe house, she is trained as a spy in order to help topple the existing government. Daiyu spends hours learning refined manners and niceties and flirtations to pass among the elite—and steals moments to be with handsome Kalen, the only person in this alternate world whom she truly trusts or truly loves.
There is only one problem. Once her task is done, she must return to her own St. Louis and leave Kalen behind . . . forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Daiyu was adopted as a baby from China by an American couple, and now as a teenager in St. Louis, a strangely attractive gem sends her into an alternate world where North America was colonized by Chinese settlers rather than Europeans. Daiyu is recruited by Ombri and Aurora, two "servants of the gods" who are also able to move between worlds, to help stop Chenglei, a dangerous traveler who has been elected prime minister of Shenglang (the alternate version of St. Louis and "arguably the most important city on the world called Jia"). But even as Daiyu becomes increasingly fascinated by Shenglang and attracted to Kalen, who assists Ombri and Aurora, she begins questioning everything: is the charming Chenglei truly evil? ("Were Aurora and Ombri simply interdimensional bounty hunters who had their own agenda?" she wonders. "How could she possibly know?"). Shinn's (General Winston's Daughter) fantasy finds the right balance between adventure and romance, while illuminating how seductive evil can be and that sometimes the best weapon one can possess is a skeptical mind. Ages 12 up.