DESIRE. 

Young and beautiful, Monique de Champlain desires nothing more from life than always to be happy. Her father is a wealthy broker of Oriental spices. Her brother is a poet. And her fiancé is the dashing buccaneer Captain Rodrigo Oliveiro de Sousa. When Captain de Sousa returns to France from Asia he tells Monique and her family a startling tale he heard in Nagasaki: hidden in a secret cave on Yukitake, a remote mountain in Japan, are miraculous blood-red crystals with the power to bestow or restore perfect health. A woman known only as the Jewel Maiden is rumored to possess one of these crystals. Captain de Sousa vows to voyage across the globe again and find her, for he craves the agelessness to be gained from the crystals’ power, as well as the fortune to be reaped from their sale. His success in his resolve takes on a dire urgency when a plague visits the town of Pontoise. Monique suffers from illness and a loss of fortune, a reverse Cinderella falling from riches to rags, and her grasp at happiness hangs in doubt without the aid of the fabulous crystals. But Japan in the 1620s is a dangerous place for foreigners, especially Europeans. 

Experience this spiritual adventure with Monique, Rodrigo, and a ronin samurai as they journey through musketeer France and medieval Japan, where two worlds face each other along the same path of discovery. 

The Crystals of Yukitake is historical fiction, spiced with fantasy and romance, a spiritual quest that touches the soul.