Lola Nitika McNeill-Lavein is a sixteen year old girl with a few issues. She may be sixteen, but her body hasn't come to terms with that idea. Her parents are both world-famous in their fields, and she often finds herself living away from one or both of them. When she finally gets to catch up with them in China, she ends up nearly getting killed and then having an ancient monkey god steal her soul, shove it into the sticky wax-filled ear of the god's body and her own body is invaded by the capricious soul of the Monkey. Even once she gets back home he teases her, taunts her and generally makes her life as miserable as it is unique. But, he has his reasons. For one, she needs to be trained to defend herself from a murdering religious fanatic. This book is the first two parts of her story and takes her from her comfortable home to the mountains of China, gets her trapped in a deep cavern with a dragon, sends her on a vision quest and sees her making the decision to leave everything she hold dear behind her.