They all saw it at once. A wooden craft of sorts—as long as an ancient redwood, as tall as a river alder. It moved not with the wind but across it.

“Look! There are men riding atop the giant craft! Some climb near the top of wooden poles. Others pull on thick twine. They are adorned in strange capes and wear odd coverings on their heads. They must be gods from the land beyond the setting sun!”

Charquin lifted his hand high above his head in greeting. His fellow tribesmen, following their leader’s gesture, did the same.

The strange vessel banked across the wind and headed out to sea. An acknowledging puff of blue-gray smoke appeared at the center, signaling the presence of fire. Then came a deafening roar. There was a long silence after the last speck of the visitors’ craft disappeared.

Finally, Charquin spoke. “What we have seen must be remembered.”

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Spain is on the move in California and in turmoil at home. As wars ensue and revolutions brew, a Gypsy woman flees her captors, a young soldier dreams of a future, and a French naval officer conquers a dancer’s heart.

On the crescent shores of the great bay, a priest battles inner demons while pursuing men’s souls. An Ohlone chief is worried. He does not understand his spirit guide, the Lioness. He hopes the shaman’s lifeforce in his young daughter will point the way.

Set during the latter half of the turbulent eighteenth century, Five Hundred Moons spans nearly five decades and two continents as we follow the spirited Carmona family, Alta California’s Ohlone people, the zealous Junipero Serra and his Franciscan missionaries, and the heavy-handed Spanish military that sought to control them all. As richly drawn as the landscapes they inhabit, Anderson’s characters meet indignity and deprivation with resourcefulness and compassion in the timeless search for where they fit in a world undergoing monumental change.