If it's been awhile since you've read these volumes, I have taken the liberty of doing a chapter-by-chapter summary of each book in the series to refresh your memory. Our own testimonies about the restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were strengthened and Gerald Lund took his place as a respected and groundbreaking author in LDS literature.

Millions of readers, including myself, became endeared to these characters. The series covers approximately 20 years (1827-1847) and became the number one best-selling book series in LDS fiction during the 1990's. These people come to life in this powerful historical novel, a story that captures both the heartache and the happiness that came in the wake of Joseph's experience with the pillar of light.Welcome! I created this site for everyone who remembers reading this phenomenal series that follows a fictional family by the name of Steed and their life changing journey through meeting Joseph Smith and joining the Mormon church. This book skillfully explores the inmost motivations of Joseph Smith and his early followers and the responses of typical contemporary families to the claims he made. Here are Benjamin and Mary Ann Steed, devoted to each other as man and wife, yet at odds over religion Joshua, their volatile son, who rebels and heads for trouble the sensitive Nathan, their second son, in whom Joseph Smith's message strikes a responsive chord the beautiful Lydia McBride, who captures the hearts of both Joshua and Nathan. The well-drawn plot and fictional characters present a moving, gripping story. In his hands this combination seems to make the reader an eyewitness to the early scenes of the Restoration, thus deepening one's understanding and appreciation of those momentous events. Lund here masterfully weaves together historical reality and high-powered fiction.

Did he really see the Father and the Son in a pillar of light? Has he truly been visited by angelic messengers? What is all this talk about gold plates and new scripture? In short, is he a prophet and seer or a monumental fraud? The answers each one gives to these questions - intensely personal, potentially divisive - will dramatically affect the lives of the Steeds forever after.Īuthor Gerald N.

There they meet a young man named Joseph Smith and are thrown into the maelstrom of conflict and controversy that swirls around him.

In the 1820s they move from Vermont to Palmyra Township in upstate New York in search of better farmland. Pillar of Light - the first volume in the series The Work and the Glory - begins the epic story of the Benjamin Steed family.

Pillar of light gerald n lund