The Mission: A Novel COMING SOON

In 1769, Friar Junipero Serra, under the cross of the Catholic Church and the protection of New Spain, founded the first of the twenty-one California missions. As Serra consecrated the ground, he simultaneously commenced the slavery and desecration of the region’s native people, the Chumash. 

Thirty years after Serra’s arrival, the Spanish mission system is thriving. A young Chumash girl, Ahash, watches soldiers ride into her coastal village. Ahash has heard stories of these brutish foreigners but she never imagines that they will come for her. She suddenly finds herself in strange surroundings with a new name, unfamiliar clothing, and a bell dictating her every movement.

Then she is told she must sleep in the monjerio – a dormitory for unmarried girls – for her protection. Each night, the bolt locking the sleeping girls inside the monjerio slides open. The intruder might wear the uniform of a soldier, the cloak of a friar, or the traveling clothes of a guest. Ahash and the other monjerio girls never know who will take them from their beds.

In this shifting world where the Church hides sins, nature wreaks biblical-like disasters, and an entire culture rapidly fades away, Ahash bears two daughters and while holding desperately to her Chumash identity, struggles to keep them safe.