Saving the World

While Alma Huebner is researching a new novel, she finds her real story - and her salvation - in a little-known but staggering historical footnote: the Royal Expedition of the Vaccine. In 1803, Don Francisco Balmis embarked on a two-year sea voyage to rescue the New World from smallpox. Accompanying him were twenty-two orphan boys, acting as live carriers, and their guardian, Isabel Sendales y Gomez. As Alma digs deeper into Isabel's life, she finds her own power to commit an act as life-changing as Isabel's.