Heaven's Favorite (Ascent: the Rise of Chinggis Khan)

"If he sends me into fire or into the ocean, I will go. I'll go for him." Temujin rose from exile and slavery to conquer the world. This is his story.

In the same spirit as Shogun, James Clavell's epic historical novel of feudal Japan, Heaven's Favorite tells the tale of Temujin, the Mongol outcast who swept all before him to become Chinggis Khan, the founder of an empire six times larger than Rome's. Book One relates the story of his rise and the foundation of the Mongol empire. In 1167 A.D., eastern Asia is dominated by three powerful empires. Manchurian invaders, the Jurchen, have controlled northern China for more than a century, and the Chinese Sung dynasty reigns in southern China. To the west, the Tibetan Xi Xia empire has ruled the area south of the Gobi and west of the Yellow River for over a hundred years. A fractious collection of Mongol tribes, their divisions inflamed by the manipulative Jurchens, occupy a small area southeast of Lake Baikal.

The son of a tribal chieftain betrayed by self-serving relatives, Temujin finds himself banished to a life of exile and poverty at the age of ten. Rejecting blood ties to the nobility, his childhood love becomes his wife and most trusted advisor as he assembles about himself a small band, his future generals, who will remain with him for the rest of his life.

Heaven's Favorite paints a vivid portrait of the Asia of eight hundred years ago as Temujin's story unfolds. Book two, Dominion: Dawn of the Mongol Empire, completes this epic tale.

In pursuit of the true story behind this saga, the author visited China and traveled over forty-five hundred kilometers through the Mongolian countryside in the company of Mongol scholars.