Set in 1622, when the religious wars and persecutions of musketeer France and medieval Japan furthered prejudice and intolerance, The Crystals of Yukitake tells the story of Monique de Champlain's quest for healing. Young and beautiful, she asks nothing more from life than always to be happy. Her dashing fiancé, buccaneer Rodrigo Oliveiro de Sousa, agrees—he believes their happiness can be guaranteed by the perfect health and endless wealth granted by certain blood-red crystals which legend says lie hidden on a mountaintop in faraway Japan. His success in his resolve takes on a dire urgency for Monique when a plague visits her town of Pontoise. But Japan in the 1620s is a dangerous place for foreigners, especially Europeans. Adventure and fantasy swirl together inside and beyond the enclosure of a French convent and Japan's Tokaido road in Elizabeth D'Onofrio's illuminating drama of desire and transcendence, where West and East face each other along the same path of interior discovery. The Crystals of Yukitake takes the reader on a spiritual journey that touches the soul.