Grace Lin returns with a new book after a nine-year hiatus; The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon comes out May 6; ... But it had. Now the sphere was racing over the bare roads, ...

Grace Lin. Little, Brown, $18.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-316-47832-8. ... But when a rogue kick knocks the Sacred Sphere through the portal, he gives chase, trapping himself in the human world.

Cue Grace Lin, whose latest novel, “The Gate, the Girl and the Dragon,” embraces this trope as well. Her setting is a bustling urban center, in the middle of which stands the Old City Gate.