Thy Gold to Refine (The Work and the Glory, Volume 4)

The story of the fictional Steed family enters one of the stormiest and yet most inspiring periods in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Picking up where volume 3 left off in the summer of 1838, this installment finds the Steeds (all but their daughter Melissa and her family) happily reunited in Far West, Missouri, only to be thrown into a maelstrom of intense and tragic events: the election-day battle at Gallatin; the siege of DeWitt; the Battle of Crooked River; the issuing of Governor Bogg's extermination order; the Haun's Mill massacre; the fall of Far West, the incarceration of the Prophet Joseph Smith; and the expulsion from Missouri. Beloved characters from previous volums return here, including Joshua Steet, who, although reconciled to his family now, finds that his commission in the Missouri state militia forces him to be aligned with those opposing the Mormons.