Silk and Song Trilogy

In Everything Under the Heavens, 16-year old Johanna fled Cambaluc-and her murderous stepmother-joining her uncle's westbound caravan on the Silk Road. With her foster brother Jaufre and a few faithful companions, they made it to the rooftop of the world-Terak Pass-separating Mongol China from the scattered sheikdoms of the Persian empire. Then, disaster struck. In a climactic skirmish, Johanna and her stallion, North Wind, were abducted and Jaufre left for dead. Now, in By the Shores of the Middle Sea, Johanna is a prisoner in the harem at Talikan, with Baron Ogodei's army pillaging the countryside and preparing to sack the tiny Persian enclave. Hundreds of leagues to the south, in Kabul, Jaufre lies recovering from his near-fatal wound. Their journey has taken them halfway across a continent, yet an equal distance still lies between them and Gaza, where Johanna and Jaufre once meant to take ship for Venice and the sanctuary of Johanna's grandfather's family. Gaza and Venice: two cities on opposite shores of the Middle Sea that together open a door to the West. For Johanna and Jaufre, it's a passage that will shape their destiny, if only they can reach it.

Sixteen-year-old Johanna flees Cambaluc in 1322, following the murder of her father and the murderous intentions of her step-mother, accompanied by her foster sister and wise woman Shasha, and by Jaufre, an orphan of the Road who has been raised to be her companion-and who hopes to become more. Together they take to the Road, that storied collection of routes that link the silks of Cathay, the spices of the Indies and the jewels of the Indus to the markets of the western world. Their destination? Venice, that fabled port of the Middle Sea, and the home of Johanna's her grandfather, the legendary Marco Polo. The Land Beyond, the third and final book in the Silk and Song trilogy, opens in Venice in 1324, where Johanna and company must find a new patron, a new way to earn their living, and above all a new home-all of which is complicated by a cunning kidnapping, a daring rescue, a tragic death, and a brush with royalty that puts Johanna and Jaufre and all their friends in the most danger they've seen yet.