Derek

Missionary Diplomacy illuminates the crucial place of religion in nineteenth-century American diplomacy. From the 1810s through the 1920s, Protestant missionaries positioned themselves as key experts in the development of American relations in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, and the Middle East. Missionaries served as consuls, translators, and occasional trouble-makers who forced the State Department to take actions it otherwise would have avoided. Yet as decades passed, more Americans began to question the propriety of missionaries' power.

Meanwhile, modern-day character Emma Rose, a notable speaker and business consultant, is trying to make sense of her recently deceased father’s request to be buried in a small Idaho town. Her journey of discovery begins from there.

The ocean between them isn’t the only thing keeping them apart. Thanks to the machinations of the evil pirate and marauder, Uriah Smith, and Azazel’s cold-hearted leader, Lord Janus Auberon, an ocean now separates Sela from her beloved Caleb. When the unthinkable occurs, she despairs of life itself, until an act of unexpected kindness allows her to escape her captors.

After being sentenced to death for the accidental killing of a wealthy, well-connected man, Sela Meriweather is offered another option—to be stripped of her soul and sentenced to lifetime exile on Azazel, the vast prison-island. There, alongside “dangerous” criminals like herself, firstborn children of the Old Town chosen by the lot are sent to atone for the sins of their families. As one of the elected Righteous, Caleb Alexander’s path to widespread renown is guaranteed so long as he can endure a year as an overseer on Azazel, preventing the other guards from fraternizing with the prisoners.