The Gate of All Wonders — Jack Tate

Jack Atwood was a moderately successful poet before his marriage disintegrated. Jack put his writing aspirations on hold while he raised his three children. Each night though, Jack would ask the Universe to help him re-discover love, and one night the Universe answered with a single word singing in his heart - Change. Change came to Jack Atwood's life the day he opened an ancient Chinese manuscript willed to him by his great uncle. Jack's great-uncle James was a scholar who unwittingly participated in one of the greatest acts of cultural destruction in the modern world the 1900 burning of the fantastic Hanlin Academy in Beijing; but in atonement James rescued twelve volumes of a one-of-a-kind ancient encyclopedia. Before he died, James entrusted the volumes repatriation to Jack. After the Universe whispered the word Change to Jack he changed his diet and stopped smoking but Jack's life truly changed forever when Yanhua Huang walked into the library where he was working and asked, are you the poet J. Atwood Yanhua Huang came from a family of distinguished scholars. In college Yanhua was a brilliant physics student who wrote fairy tales to express her artistic side. Yanhua fell in love with a professor of Western Literature. But their love was doomed as Yanhua lover was murdered by a gang of students led by an insanely jealous suitor. After the murder Yanhua decided to study in America, but before leaving for America Yanhua's beloved grandfather asked her to find information about their ancestor who came to America to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. In America, this search leads Yanhua to an obscure book of poetry and eventually to the writer J. Atwood. Together Jack and Yanhua studied the ancient volumes rescued by Jack'sgreat uncle, but their studies are interrupted by the return of Yanhua's tormentor the dangerous suitor who found her in America. The danger drives Yanhua into Jack's arms. Yanhua's love revives Jack's poetic muse; Jack's love gives Yanhua the