Eight Family Trees – BENTALL – CRAFT – EMMERT – LIBBY – STEVENS – SWARTZ – WAGONER

In 1947, Ray Petriani flees Texas with a wife and young family. He takes a job in California and is sent to inland China on a business venture. An exchange with a local potentate provides him with two gifts he doesn’t want, cannot reject, and must protect. The first, a gilded antique music box said to have belonged to a Chinese Emperor, uncovers additional doubts which raise further problems. Ray believes its significance lies in how it was given. But the second gift, a beautiful female slave, rocks his world.

In 1886, Ida Lapp, a plucky Pennsylvania woman, secretly loves an Englisher, something strictly forbidden by the Amish Ordnung. When discovered by her parents, her penalty forever changes her life and sends her on a journey to face persecution, at the same time she desires the impossible—to return home to a family who despises her. On an Iowa farm, Anna dies and leaves Joseph Melroy with the daunting task of raising two small children.