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Set entirely in Western Australia it traces the seven generations of this one man Anthony Barnabas Curtis who had humble beginnings at the Swan River Colony (now known as Fremantle) in 1830, just 14 months after it was founded.

For the Steeds, the years between 1836 and 1838 are a time of separation and reunion, committment and apostasy, heartache and hope. Nathan Steed joins Parley P. Pratt on a challenging mission to Upper Canada. Jessica, Joshua's ex-wife, feels compelled to seek a safe haven with the Church in Far West, Missouri; meanwhile, Joshua, restless, ambitious, and haunted by his past -- journeys to Savannah, Georgia. Tensions between Melissa and her nonmember husband, Carl, forces her to make a difficult decision.

Thy Gold to Refine covers one of the stormiest and trying, yet inspiring periods of Church history. The Steeds are reunited in Far West, Missouri, all the while animosity towards the Mormons is growing unchecked. Violence erupts and Governor Boggs issues an extermination order for the Mormons leading to the spilling of innocent blood at the Haun's Mill massacre. Far West falls, Joseph Smith is jailed, and the Mormon Saints are forced from Missouri. Even Joshua Steed takes up arms, but will he fight for or against the Mormons?

Pillar of Light — the first volume in the series The Work and the Glory — begins the epic story of the Benjamin Steed family. In the 1820s they move from Vermont to Palmyra Township in upstate New York in search of better farmland. There they meet a young man named Joseph Smith and are thrown into the maelstrom of conflict and controversy that swirls around him. Did he really see the Father and the Son in a pillar of light? Has he truly been visited by angelic messengers? What is all this talk about gold plates and new scripture? In short, is he a prophet and seer or a monumental fraud?