Raised in a prosperous family of 14th century Chinese merchants, Wu Johanna has grown up on camelback, in bustling city marketplaces, and in the cool, shaded depths of Silk Road caravanserai. Hers is a world of spice merchants and pearl divers, bandits and troubadours, servants and sheikhs. A world in which trust is more valuable than gold, and the right name can unlock a network of contacts from Japan to North Africa. Johanna is, after all, the granddaughter of Marco Polo. In the wake of her father’s death, however, Johanna finds that lineage counts for little amid the disintegrating court of the Khan. Dynastic loyalties are shifting, petty jealousies lead to cold-blooded murders, and the long knives are coming out. If Johanna is to find a future for herself, she’ll have to rely on her wits, the vagaries of fortune, and a close-knit circle of friends and traveling companions. Her destiny—if she has one—lies more than a continent away, at the very edge of the known world.

By the Shores of the Middle Sea is the second novel in Dana Stabenow’s Silk and Song Trilogy. In Everything Under the Heavens, 16-year old Johanna fled Cambaluc—and her murderous stepmother—joining her uncle's westbound caravan on the Silk Road. With her foster brother Jaufre and a few faithful companions, they made it to the rooftop of the world—Terak Pass—separating Mongol China from the scattered sheikdoms of the Persian empire. Then, disaster struck. In a climactic skirmish, Johanna and her stallion, North Wind, were abducted and Jaufre left for dead. Now, in By the Shores of the Middle Sea, Johanna is a prisoner in the harem at Talikan, with Baron Ogodei's army pillaging the countryside and preparing to sack the tiny Persian enclave. Hundreds of leagues to the south, in Kabul, Jaufre lies recovering from his near-fatal wound. Their journey has taken them halfway across a continent, yet an equal distance still lies between them and Gaza, where Johanna and Jaufre once meant to take ship for Venice and the sanctuary of Johanna's grandfather's family. Gaza and Venice: two cities on opposite shores of the Middle Sea that together open a door to the West. For Johanna and Jaufre, it’s a passage that will shape their destiny, if only they can reach it.

Sixteen-year-old Johanna flees Cambaluc in 1322, following the murder of her father and the murderous intentions of her step-mother, accompanied by her foster sister and wise woman Shasha, and by Jaufre, an orphan of the Road who has been raised to be her companion—and who hopes to become more. Together they take to the Road, that storied collection of routes that link the silks of Cathay, the spices of the Indies and the jewels of the Indus to the markets of the western world. Their destination? Venice, that fabled port of the Middle Sea, and the home of Johanna's her grandfather, the legendary Marco Polo. The Land Beyond, the third and final book in the Silk and Song trilogy, opens in Venice in 1324, where Johanna and company must find a new patron, a new way to earn their living, and above all a new home—all of which is complicated by a cunning kidnapping, a daring rescue, a tragic death, and a brush with royalty that puts Johanna and Jaufre and all their friends in the most danger they've seen yet.

Beijing, 1322. Wu Johanna is the granddaughter of the legendary trader Marco Polo. In the wake of her father's death, Johanna finds that lineage counts for little amid the den of intrigue that is the Great Khan's court. Johanna's future – if she has one – lies with her grandfather, in Venice, more than a continent away at the very edge of the known world. So, with a small band of companions, she takes to the Silk Road – that storied collection of routes that link the silks of Cathay, the spices of the Indies and the jewels of the Indus to the markets of the West. But the journey will be long and arduous, for the road ahead is beset by burning sands and ice-fanged mountains, thieves and fanatics, treachery and betrayal.