Equal parts mys­tery and epic nov­el inspired by his­tor­i­cal events, For­eign Seed plunges read­ers into the search for a man who seems to van­ish out of thin air. 

Chi­na, June 1918. When the explor­er Frank Mey­er sud­den­ly dis­ap­pears from a fer­ry on the Yangtze Riv­er, Amer­i­can Vice-Con­sul Samuel Sokobin is tasked with find­ing the miss­ing man. By the time Sokobin receives the case, four days have passed since Mey­er was last seen on the vast riv­er. With no clues to guide his search and fear­ing fail­ure in his new post as a man of rank, Sokobin heads upriv­er with Mr. Lin, a Chi­nese inter­preter he’s nev­er met. The inves­ti­ga­tion soon turns deeply per­son­al for Sokobin, who can’t help but con­flate Meyer’s fate with that of his own dar­ing younger broth­er — a fight­er pilot gone MIA in the world war. As Sokobin con­tin­ues to search for answers, this men­tal con­nec­tion threat­ens to break him, and he’s forced to con­tend with the biggest ques­tion of all: what do we do when the answers we most des­per­ate­ly seek are the very ones that elude us? 

A sweep­ing tale of loss and grief, For­eign Seed is a mov­ing tes­ta­ment to friend­ship, faith, and the resilience of the human spir­it. Alli­son Alsup’s exquis­ite­ly researched debut nov­el will stay in read­ers’ hearts and minds long after they’ve turned the last page.