Tessa, K. Prater and Salodius Byrd's debut novel, was inspired by an actual person, Tessa Marie Horan. Tessa, raised in an unconventional family from the western United States, plans a journey to India and Nepal in search of spiritual and moral discipline after she completes her high school education. A few months before she departs, her brother experiences a life-changing injury that leaves him a paraplegic. The tone is set to weigh all the parts of her life as she is torn between Buddhist and familial obligation and devotion. On her journeys Tessa bears witness to the disparity of cultures, human trafficking, marginalization, and the destruction of our planet. While Tessa is in a remote village of the Himalayas, a young girl is sold by her family into servitude, and the pivotal point of Tessa's commitment and passion jettisons into deliberate motion. She begins a courageous journey to promote change in the world and enlists in the Peace Corps after her college education. Tessa is assigned to a far-flung village in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, where she becomes intimate with the science of people while integrating with the villagers. She contemplates the reasons she made a rebellious decision to leave her family of origin as her personal heritage surfaces. Tessa is in search of answers, clarity, and inextinguishable hope about the polarity of the world. She must face unintended consequences because of her choices.