From the #1 internationally bestselling author comes a sweeping epic that chronicles the history of the world through the destiny of a mysterious blue stone . . .Sweeping epic about the history of humanity . . . Wood crafts vivid sketches of ordinary women who triumph over a prescribed destiny . . . packs them with historical details that should keep readers interested. --Publishers Weekly Ambitious . . . both thoughtful and playful . . . intelligent and entertaining. --San Jose Mercury News In each era, Wood creates genuine, engaging characters whose stories are fascinating. --Library Journal Millions of years ago, a meteorite fell to earth and a beautiful blue stone shattered from it. One hundred thousand years ago, a girl named Tall One found the crystal on the African plain---and it formed her destiny, as well as the destiny of generations to come. From ancient Israel to imperial Rome, medieval England, fifteenth-century Germany, the eighteenth-century Caribbean, and the nineteenth-century American West, the destiny of the stone and the history of the world unfold. Each story is full of the betrayals and obsessions of the human heart, and the quests of the human spirit. In The Blessing Stone, Barbara Wood has both told the intimate details of her characters lives and created a sense of the epic sweep of human history.