Journalist Paige Keller returns to Aurum Valley to begin uncovering the secrets of the valley’s history, to the displeasure of those determined to keep those secrets hidden. She discovers the story of Aurelia’s founder, an ambitious young man who returned to the valley to make his home and fortune there, and of a fearless native girl who left her tribe to follow a stranger to a new and unknown life.

She discovers the history of a disillusioned immigrant who fled his family’s faith to establish a new religion in the valley, despite suffering a broken moral compass. In the present, a talented young actress is lured into the lair of a predacious Hollywood producer; the leader of the local church is drawn into a secretive organization with influence deep in the halls of power; a weary environmentalist is inspired to greater sacrifice by an impassioned teenager; a jaded professor is challenged by a precocious new student; an aging sculptress strives to finish her magnum opus while still alive and able; the heir of the valley’s founding family begins building where neither the Church nor the environmentalists want anyone to build

—on a hill they all hold sacred. The Fruit of the Tree is Part III of the acclaimed Idolatry saga, the story of a wealthy young heir and a devout Christian girl who find themselves at the heart of the struggle for the soul of Western Civilization.