Donna Dechen Birdwell

They thought Melfar and Mundani were the only people left on Earth. They were wrong. The hopeful joy wrought by the dedication of the Book of All Time, with its heady celebration of Meridia as both Melfar Calumet and Mundani Prophet, is shattered when a ship with expansive white wings drops anchor off Selbourne. The ship and its occupants depart as swiftly as they came, taking with them a mirror and two Melfar-including one of Meridia's infant twins. They leave behind only mystery: Who are these people? And where did they come from?Meridia and her partner Damon must fight through their personal grief to recover their missing daughter and her caregiver Yuli. But how to begin? They have no ships. Perhaps an answer lies in the nearly forgotten Melfar Song of the Sea or in deciphering the original purpose of the stolen mirror, discovered long ago in the perilous ruins of Swarthpol, where Meridia's father was once imprisoned. Perhaps there are ways of reaching Yuli and the baby that do not require ships.

Long after the apocalypse, Earth has repeopled itself. Twice. Despised by her mother's people and demeaned by her absent father's legacy, Meridia has one friend-Damon, an eccentric photologist. When Damon shows Meridia a stone he discovered in an old photo bag purchased from a vagrant peddler, she is transfixed. There's a woman, she says, a dancing woman. And a song. Can a song contain worlds? Oblivious of mounting political turmoil, the two set out to find the old peddler, to find out what he knows about the stone, the woman, and the song. But marauding zealots attack and take Damon captive. Meridia is alone. Desolate. Terrified. Yet determined to carry on, to pursue the stone's extraordinary song, even as it lures her into a journey that will transform her world.

When Meg was a little girl, Abuela Mar a predicted she would travel to the moon. Now she's an archaeologist digging up Mayan ruins in Belize while trying to keep her own past buried beneath hard work and professional responsibility. It isn't working. The summer of 2022 seems destined to push all of Meg's buttons-her deep-seated aversion to marijuana and guns and the unwanted presence of a boy who reminds her of a certain horrific summer in Mexico. Digging deeper only unearths more questions. And then her husband buys a lottery ticket for the first tourist flight to the moon. What Meg doesn't want to know may yet be her redemption.