All Is Well

All Is Well, the powerful and moving ninth volume of the series The Work and the Glory, brings to a close the Restoration-era portion of this epic story. It follows the fictional Steed family from June 1846 to October 1847 as they participate in some of the most pivotal and dramatically charged events in Church history, including the migration of the Saints from the banks of the Missouri River to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.As this volume opens, the Steeds have been scattered — and the family is only split up further as the story unfolds. Will and Alice's voyage aboard the Brooklyn nears its end as the ship approaches the California shore. Peter and Kathryn continue their journey westward in the Donner-Reed party. In Nauvoo, Melissa and Carl find their situation growing increasingly dangerous and their marriage more and more strained. Other Steed family members are temporarily encamped at the Missouri River, where the Saints will set up winter quarters. When the United States government, at war with Mexico, calls for five hundred Mormon volunteers to form a battalion, some of the Steeds march with that battalion in its history-making trek across the continents. Meanwhile, other family members become part of the pioneer companies that, at last, establish in the West a place of refuge for the Saints.As with the previous books in the series, this volume is populated with a host of interesting characters, both fictional and historical. And even though throughout most of the story the Steeds are separated from one another, hope remains that somehow all of them will be reunited, and with the rest of the Saints they will make the chorus swell: “All is well! All is well!”