A Land Called Bountiful: Kirby Jonas

This is the third book in the Lehi's Dream series, a dramatic retelling of the Book of Mormon as historical fiction. While it is first and foremost a dramatization of the original Book of Mormon, complete with compelling character personalities, description of lifestyles and settings, and can be read to learn more about the book, in a more exciting style, it can also be read by a reader who only wants to be entertained. For anyone who knows nothing about the Book of Mormon, this could simply be a wonderful tale of mighty heroes, delightful villains, and a saga that spans centuries, by the end of the series.

This individual book in the series may best be described using the text from the back cover:

They call it the Rub al Khali. Hundreds of miles of sand, rock, and devastation. Red dunes of sand. Yellow dunes of sand. Some stand six hundred above the valley floor. To cross this forsaken land will take all of the courage and strength that a people can possess. Crossing it with women and children is almost unheard of.

And yet the people of Lehi, on command from a God they cannot even see, turn east from the Red Sea, and toward the Rub al Khali, also known as the "Empty Quarter," they point their faces.

Haunted by rebellious sons, oven-like days, and death-cold nights, Lehi leads his family in one of the greatest tales of faith ever told. Forbidden to use fire, night camps have little comfort. Meat, when it can be found, is eaten raw. The water itself can be filled with poison. Suffering and death await Lehi's people in the Empty Quarter.

Yet on the other side awaits a green land filled with fruit, a land that borders a magnificent sea. A land called Bountiful.