Cirrus@Austlit

'To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything

'"I refuse to be nothing"

'In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness

'In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family's eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family's clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

'When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

'After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.' (Publication summary)

'Mercy "wakes" on a school bus bound for Paradise, a small town where everyone knows everyone else′s business... or thinks they do. But Mercy has a secret life. She is an angel, doomed to return repeatedly to Earth, taking on a new "persona" each time she does, in an effort to resolve a cataclysmic rift between heavenly beings.

'The first of a brilliant new series sees Mercy meeting Ryan, an eighteen-year-old whose sister was kidnapped two years ago and is presumed dead. When another girl is also kidnapped, Mercy knows she has to act quickly and use extraordinary powers to rescue her, even if it means exposing her true identity.' (From the publisher's website.)

'It's the beginning of the 20th century; the age of scientific progress. But for Venice the future looks bleak. A conference of scientists assembles to address the problems, among whose delegates are the parents of eleven-year-old Teodora. Within days of her arrival, she is subsumed into the secret life of Venice: a world in which salty-tongued mermaids run subversive printing presses, ghosts good and bad patrol the streets and librarians turn fluidly into cats. A battle against forces determined to destroy the city once and for all quickly ensues. Only Teo, the undrowned child who survived a tragic accident as a baby, can go "between-the-linings" to subvert evil and restore order.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.