Rachel Neumeier

Imagine you live with your aunt, who hates you so much she's going to sell you into a dreadful apprenticeship. Imagine you run away before that can happen. Imagine that you can see ghostsand talk with the dead. People like you are feared, even shunned. Now imaginethe first people you encounter after your escape are a mysterious stranger and a ghost boy, who seem to need you desperatelythough you don't understand who they are or exactly what they want you to do. So you set off on a treacherous journey, with only a ghost dog for company. And you find that what lies before you is a task so monumental that it could change the world.

Natividad is Pure, one of the rare girls born able to wield magic. Pure magic can protect humans against the supernatural evils they only half-acknowledge-- the blood kin or the black dogs. But before Natividad's mother can finish teaching her magic their enemies find them. Their entire village in the remote hills of Mexico is slaughtered by black dogs. Natividad and her brothers must flee across a strange country to the only possible shelter: the infamous black dogs of Dimilioc, who have sworn to protect the Pure. In the snowy forests of Vermont they must pass the tests of the Dimilioc Master.

Despite her parents' misgivings and the distrust of her new collaborator, novelist David Moreton, photographer Vivien Shaw eagerly accepts the chance to work with Moreton on a book about Barbados, and soon finds her life in danger.

With the Mad King of Emmer in the north and the vicious King of Pohorir in the east, Kehara Raehema knows her country is in a vulnerable position. She never expected to give up everything she loves to save her people, but when the Mad King's fury leaves her land in danger, she'll do anything that might buy time for her people to prepare for war--no matter the personal cost. Hundreds of miles away, the pitiless Wolf Duke of Pohorir, Innisth Eanete, dreams of breaking his people and his province free of the king he despises. But he has no way to make that happen--until chance unexpectedly leaves Kehara on his doorstep and at his mercy. Yet in a land where many-headed dragons fly and immanent spirits inhabit the earth, political disaster is not the greatest peril one can face. Now, as the year rushes toward the dangerous midwinter, Kehera and Innisth find themselves unwilling allies, and their joined strength is all that stands between the peoples of the Four Kingdoms and utter catastrophe.

THE KINGDOM'S HEART is the City. The City's heart is the King. The King's heart is the Prince. The Prince is missing.Ever since the Prince disappeared, nothing has been right in the Kingdom. Something has disturbed the strange, old magic that whispers around its borders . . . something cunning and powerful. And the disturbance extends to the farthest reaches of the Kingdom, including the idyllic village where Timou is learning to be a mage under her father's tutelage.When Timou's father journeys to the City to help look for the Prince, but never returns, Timou senses that the disturbance in the Kingdom is linked to her--and to the undiscovered heritage of the mother she never knew. She must leave her village, even if it means confronting powers greater than her own, even though what she finds may challenge everything she knows. Even if it means leaving love behind.From the Hardcover edition.