Gateway

Gateway by Sharon Shinn  280 pp.

A young adult fantasy homage to her hometown written by a local author. Teen-aged Daiyu lives in St. Louis with her family who adopted her from China. She buys a ring from a strange old woman selling jewelry at a booth at Fair St. Louis. Walking under the Arch sends her through a portal to a parallel world--the Gateway to the West was a gateway to this other world where everyone is Chinese. Daiyu ends up in a safe house being trained for a secret mission to help topple the government in power and send the leader back to his own dimension. The next time I see Sharon I'll ask her how long she's had the Arch/portal idea kicking around in her mind.