num_pages: 448
description: The great fire of 1835 burned most of New York City's wooden downtown. Like many people, Archie Prescott thought he had lost everything. His home was a smoldering ruin, his dead wife's body at his feet. And next to her is a child's corpse he assumes was his daughter. It seems like the end of everything.But it is only the beginning.Goaded into action by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, Archie runs afoul of one of P. T. Barnum's former sideshow workers, Riley Steen. With the help of an ancient book translated by Aaron Burr, Steen has resurrected a chacmool. This ageless Mesoamerican avatar plans to use the blood of Archie's still-living daughter to bring about the end of humanity.At the same time, Stephen Bishop guides tourists through the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. Stephen, a slave, wants nothing more than a world where the color of his skin doesn't deny his humanity. His fateful first meeting with the chacmool leads him to believe that the promise it offers may bring him to such a world.In the midst of ancient magic and murderous conspiracies, Archie finds himself with the power to save the world or drown it in sacrificial blood . . . but first he has to stop mourning his daughter and undertake a grim cross-country journey to save her.
language: English
title: A Scattering of Jades
titlecomplete: A Scattering of Jades
genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Horror, Mythology, Fantasy
ratings_count: 162
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Locus Award
category: Best First Novel, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award
publisher: Tor Books