Title:

Everything Under the Heavens

Author:

Dana Stabenow

Category:

Literature

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

April 5, 2025

ana Stabenow writes mystery stories, but with Everything Under the Heavens, she branched out to write a historical novel. The story is set on the famous Silk Road, the long, dangerous but lucrative trading route that stretched from Imperial China to the Mediterranean Sea as early as the time of the Mongols. This novel is set in the Medieval times (early 14th century) when the trade routes are well establish, though still dangerous. Everything Under the Heavens is apparently the name by which citizens of China referred to their empire during that era. The star of this tale is Johanna, the granddaughter of Marco Polo and his Chinese concubine.

The reader meets Johanna when she is just six years old, traveling with a merchant caravan along the Silk Road. Her father is Wu Li, a veteran, accomplished trader who married Shu Ming, the daughter of Marco Polo and his concubine. Shu Ming is Johanna mother, which explains her European looks: bronze hair and round eyes, tall and athletic. No bound feet for her! Each year, Wu Li travels as far as Kashgar, where he trades goods with caravans coming from the west over the Hindu Kush. Since the death of the Great Kahn, the roads are becoming more dangerous, with brigands increasing in daring and numbers. As Wu Li's caravan journeys to Kashgar, they stumble (literally) upon a young lad who no more than six years old. This is Jaufre, the sole survivor of an ambush the wiped out his father's caravan. Jaufre survived because his dying father fell on top of him, hiding Jaufre from the clutches of the slavers. Jaufre, like Johanna, has European ancestry - he has blonde hair, which is not something something commonly seen in Asia. Wu Li adopts Jaufre, and soon he and Johanna become inseparable friends.

The story jumps ahead more than a dozen years and now Johanna and Jaufre are young adults. Shu Ming died, and Wu Li remarried - this time to a much younger woman who is also a trader: Dai Fang. However, although Dai Fang may be young and beautiful, as well as an accomplished trader in her own right, Dai Fang is also ruthless, ambitious and greedy. Having a step daughter like Johanna around is certainly not in her evil plans, especially when Dai Fangs aims to make Wu Li's trading enterprises entirely her own.

Johanna is well aware of her precarious situation, Dai Fang takes no pangs to disguise her hostility. She and Jaufre decide that they will embark once more on the famed Silk Road, but this time, instead of stopping at Kashgar, they will continue west over the high mountains of the Hindu Kush and continue on to see the fabled empires around the great inland sea (the Mediterranean).

I picked up this book because the Silk Road sounds like an exotic place to set an adventure story. The cover image of the lone rider on a great white horse crossing a high desert dune is eye-catching. I don't know anything about those famed Silk Road trade routes, but fortunately Stabenow includes a map at the beginning the shows Asia at the time of this novel. There is also a list of characters at the front of the book, and I referred to that multiple times until I got used to the exotic names. Everything Under the Heavens ends with a cliff hanger, so now I must find a copy of the second book to see what happens next.