Laura Lam's Pantomime and Shadowplay are the first two novels in a trilogy about Micah Grey, who runs away from home to becoem an aerialist in a circus. It is revealed early in the first book that Micah Grey ran away from home because Micah was born as Iphigenia Laurus, a member of the nobility. Iphigenia, or Gene, is intersex, and was raised as a girl, though she never felt fully like a girl or a boy. Gene leaves home after her parents plot to force her into sex-reassignment surgery to make her "fully female."  Micah, over the course of the two novels, comes to identify more as male than female, but still exists somewhere in the middle. There is also a great deal of mythology in the novels that suggests that Micah may have a greater destiny than performing in the circus. Lam's books are a sensitive portrayal of Micah's uncertainty, confusion, and fear over gender and sexual identity, but they're also a thrilling fantasy adventure with steampunk, mystery, and mythological elements.