Husband-and-wife missionaries Will and Katherine Kiehn witness China being plunged into civil war as they continue to try to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng--The City of Tranquil Light.

"At the turn of the twentieth century, Yun Hong is born into a loving family in the southern China countryside, but as Communism consumes her older brothers, it threatens her stability-and her love affair with the son of a wealthy landlord. The line of women who later descend from Yun Hong share the burden of a family birthmark and are also each forced to reckon with both dramatic political change and the ghosts of the past"--

"The Funeral Cryer long ago accepted the mundane realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job and underappreciated by her husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of breakup. But just when things couldn't be bleaker, she takes a leap of faith--and in so doing, things start to take a surprising turn for the better"--