Dash, the only son of an impoverished Mongolian herder, is just ten years old when his father sends him to a Buddhist monastery to seek a better life. The year is 1924. They could not have foreseen the devastation that lay ahead when the People's Party began their brutal offensive against religion. Dash is the sole survivor of a bloody purge, forced to flee his faith and all that is familiar. As he makes his way in a country that is itself struggling with the upheavals of modernization and the cruel realities of its new political rule, he must constantly compromise his earlier teachings. Based on historical fact, Pearls in the Ashes is an original story that chronicles a half-century test of the power of faith, and of the human heart's ability to survive amidst the terror of political repression. It is a novel filled with courage and inspiration.