Barbara Kreiger’s intriguing narrative presents the account of Clorinda Minor, a charismatic American Christian woman whose belief in the Second Coming prompted her to leave a comfortable life in Philadelphia in 1851 and take up agriculture in Palestine.

After her disappointment in a failed prophecy that the End of Days would take place in October 1844, Mrs. Minor determined that the Holy Land was not yet adequately prepared for such an event and decided that it would be her mission to teach the poverty-stricken Jews of Palestine to work the soil. In this very American story, Mrs. Minor, like so many other pioneers of her day, looked to the land as her future.

Even as her mission was distinctly religious, her daily efforts were in the social realm. And although her work brought Jews and Arabs together, and her small farm was a unique settlement where Christians, Muslims, and Jews labored alongside one another, the events detailed in Divine Expectations had dramatic and tragic diplomatic and international repercussions.

With the deft touch of a novelist, Barbara Kreiger weaves the little-known story of Clorinda Minor into the larger context of the region and its history, presenting it in its charming eccentricity and its gripping reality.

Helen Foster Snow: An American Woman in Revolutionary China tells the story of a remarkable woman born in rural Utah in 1907, who lived in China during the 1930's and became an important author, a lifelong humanitarian, and a bridge-builder between the United States and China.

As Kelly Ann Long recounts in this engaging biography, Helen Foster Snow immersed herself in the social and political currents of a nation in turmoil. After marrying renowned journalist Edgar Snow, she developed her own writing talents and offered an important perspective on emerging events in China as that nation was wracked by Japanese invasion, the outbreak of World War II, and a continuing civil war. She supported the December Ninth Movement of 1935, broke boundaries to enter communist Yenan in 1937, and helped initiate the "gung ho" Chinese Industrial Cooperative movement.

Helen Foster Snow wrote about the people and events in China's remote communist territories during an important era. She relayed detailed portraits of female communist leaders and famous figures such as Mao Zedong and Zhu De, as well as common people struggling to survive in a period of increasing turmoil. Her informed, compassionate depictions built a bridge linking American interest to the welfare of the Chinese.

Long's account recovers the story of a controversial and important commentator on a critical period in U.S.-China relations and in Chinese history