In High Places (Crosstime Traffic Series #3) by Harry Turtledove

From the Publisher

In the 21st-century Kingdom of Versailles, the roads are terrible and Paris is a dirty little town. Serfdom and slavery are both common, and no one thinks that's wrong. Why should they? Most people spend their lives doing backbreaking farm work anyway.

But teenaged Khadija, daughter of a prosperous family of Moorish business travellers, is unfazed.  That's because Khadija is really Annette Klein from 21st-century California, and her whole family are secret agents of Crosstime Traffic, trading for commodities to send back to our own timeline. Now it's time for Annette and her family to go home for the start of another school year, so they join a pack train bound for their home base in Marseilles, where the crosstime portal is hidden.

Then bandits attack while they're crossing the Pyrenees. Annette/Khadija is separated from her parents and knocked out, and wakes up to find herself a captive in a caravan of slaves being taken to the markets in the south. She's in a tight spot.

Then the really scary thing happens: her purchasers take her, along with other newly purchased slaves, to an unofficial crosstime portal…leaving open the question of whether Crosstime Traffic will ever be able to recover her!

Publishers Weekly

Alternative history maestro Turtledove deals a tad heavy-handedly with the issue of slavery in his third Crosstime Traffic novel (after 2004's Curious Notions). In one alternative time line, the Black Death continued far longer than it did in the "home" time line with the result that Muslims occupy much of Europe, which is made up of small, insular principalities and kingdoms. When bandits in this medieval world capture 18-year-old Annette Klein (aka Khadija the oil merchant's daughter), she's separated from her parents, with no way to return to the home time line from which she and her family originate. Worse, the bandits are slavers who send people into another alternate time line where they're forced to work in miserable conditions. Turtledove convincingly portrays the conflict between Christians and Muslims, but takes less care in depicting male-and-female relationships. Didactic pronouncements on slavery notwithstanding, the book should satisfy its target audience of younger readers. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Marsha Valance - VOYA

This third novel in Turtledove's Crosstime Traffic series offers the reader a well-written coming-of-age/hero's journey, featuring a female protagonist, trader Annette Klein, alias Khadija, the teenage daughter of a Muslim merchant from Marseilles visiting the Christian kingdom of Versailles. It is set in an alternative world in which the Black Death was more virulent and a new Christian prophet arose in France. Shadowed by Jacques, Duke Raoul's teenage retainer, the trader caravan to Marseilles is interrupted by a bandit attack, during which Annette and Jacques are captured and sold into slavery in Madrid, and then resold to criminal crosstimers, who put them to work on still another alternate time line. Although the other captives accept their enslavement, Annette is revolted by her situation and plans an escape. Annette grows during the captivity, comprehending-although disagreeing with-the attitudes of her fellow slaves. She is horrified by the behavior of the crosstimers and determines to expose them. In this novel, we learn more of the "home world"-especially during the trial of the crosstime slavers, after Annette seizes her chance to get away and report them to the authorities. Annette's exposure to the realities of a slave economy helps her understand the underpinnings of her home's financial system, and its effects on the alternative time lines. Her deepening moral responsibility is contrasted with the unethical behavior of the slavers. This series entry is a recommended purchase for junior and senior high libraries. VOYA CODES: 3Q 4P S A/YA (Readable without serious defects; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult-marketed book recommended forYoung Adults). 2006, Tor, 272p., Ages 15 to Adult.

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