'All Souls is a family saga that spans the globe and five generations of Abercorns who represent, according to John Raymond of the New Statesman and Nation, "a succession of strong, silent men and a perfect legend of good woman" who never fail to do the right thing. The story begins in 1844 in Australia, where pioneer Jacob Abercorn struggles to carve a homestead in the wilderness. By the 1880s the Abercorn family has expanded into China, where Jacob's granddaughter Sickle is raised. Sickle moves to England in 1900 and raises her family in Hampshire, feeling as much like a pioneer in a new land as Jacob did many years earlier. True to the family tradition of migration, Sickle returns to China at the age of sixty with her grandson.' Source: Literature Resouces from Gale.