Now fifty years later, Sarah Johnson is the epitome of success in the American Foreign Service. She is a successful, smart, black female who seemingly has the world at her fingertips. But she is still empty inside and unsure why. Sarah's internal search for reason and faith in a hard and cold institution begins by reading an old endearing novel on a late-night flight that leads to Africa where two similar strong-soul, but worn-down women await her. Her alliance begins there, a place where she chooses to be kind to strangers and yet brutal to the hard and cold institution that made her. In South Africa, Sarah is placed in her first real battle between good and evil, right and wrong, revenge and forgiveness as she and her allies set out to protect a poor South African family that most lost it all after Sharpville. Her journey into post-apartheid life in South Africa-mixed with ancient bush rituals, religious fervor and a ghost named Mary Margaret-will leave her forever changed and on to her next journey, on that long road back home to rural North Carolina, where reason and hope have always resided. We all have our own unique ways of finding reason and hope, a new beginning, and the southern cross that shows us the way home.
