The enthralling story of three unforgettable young adults living on the cusp of great change in early 20th-century Mongolia. A captivating, beautiful saga from debut novelist Erin Jamieson about having dreams, finding love, and learning to survive in a harsh, ever-changing place.
In the winter of 1917, Bolormaa is introduced to the man she is to marry on her eighteenth birthday, over mutton stew and steaming buuz. She has spent her entire life in the Gobi Desert, living a nomadic life with her family, always moving with their animals in search of grazing lands. Reading about other places in a tent school, she dreamed of another sort of life. But now, her education is finished, and her future seems to be laid out before her like the colorful rugs in the family's ger.
Ganbaatar grew up under the vast, blue-gray, Mongolian sky, the protective arm of his mother, and the withering gaze of his father. He has been a good son and a steady hand, working on the land with the herds, often feeling that he was meant for something different-if only he had the courage to reach for it.
When Aisin's parents die, she leaves her siblings and everything she knows in China to live with her uncle in Mongolia. She's unprepared for the level of prejudice she'll face because of her heritage, but her bravery and stubbornness form a shield she readily dons. An accomplished horse rider and rare beauty, she works alongside her uncle and forges a path as a single woman during a challenging era.
A sweeping novel of historical fiction, Sky of Ashes, Land of Dreams follows these characters through the tumultuous decades following the October Revolution and outbreak of the Russian Civil War, and the Chinese occupation of Mongolia and rise of the Mongolian People's Party, under whose leadership their nomadic way of life undergoes significant changes. Bound together in a unique love triangle that will span their lives, Bolormaa, Ganbaatar, and Aisin face these changes with courage and sometimes, with fear, and their journey of self-discovery and self-determination amidst the challenges and brutalities of life is an extraordinary tale of hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit.