In present day Montreal, a young woman by the name of Percy vanishes from the streets. The woman's parents -- her father, a famous musician, and her mother, a witch -- are frantic. Soon after the woman's disappearance strange phenomena sweep the globe: snow and ice fall of season in record amounts, blanketing whole countries. World-wide crop failures are announced, droughts become widespread, and then the worst happens: daylight fails to appear... What follows is the epic tale of Percy's voyage through the Underworld, whose rules of existence are as unfathomable as the mysterious red flowers that suddenly blanket its fields. As daylight touches the dark realm, Percy unwittingly becomes the permanent guest of the Underworld's charismatic lord Pluto. And when her best friend Simon, a descendent of a long line of shamans, descends in an effort to save her, the three embark on a life and death race to figure out what - or who - has upset the balance between the two worlds before it's too late... Wonder-filled, imaginative, and compelling, L E Sterling's sophomore novel immerses readers in a magical world where existence itself is ordered by the tenuous balance between light and dark, and the story-filled pages of one remarkable book.

In present day Montreal, a young woman by the name of Percy vanishes from the streets. The woman's parents -- her father, a famous musician, and her mother, a witch -- are frantic. Soon after the woman's disappearance strange phenomena sweep the globe: snow and ice fall of season in record amounts, blanketing whole countries. World-wide crop failures are announced, droughts become widespread, and then the worst happens: daylight fails to appear... What follows is the epic tale of Percy's voyage through the Underworld, whose rules of existence are as unfathomable as the mysterious red flowers that suddenly blanket its fields. As daylight touches the dark realm, Percy unwittingly becomes the permanent guest of the Underworld's charismatic lord Pluto. And when her best friend Simon, a descendent of a long line of shamans, descends in an effort to save her, the three embark on a life and death race to figure out what - or who - has upset the balance between the two worlds before it's too late... Wonder-filled, imaginative, and compelling, L E Sterling's sophomore novel immerses readers in a magical world where existence itself is ordered by the tenuous balance between light and dark, and the story-filled pages of one remarkable book.