Novels Now

Lynn Austin
428 pages

The circumstances of life have dealt a tough blow to the Carlson sisters. First, their beloved mother dies. Next, their father dies under circumstances that ruin life for them in their Swedish village. Their uncle and his family come to live with them but rather than helping the situation it only creates new problems as their brother Nils, unable to get along with their uncle, abandons both the family farm and his sisters. The girls want to hold on to their only home but oldest sister Elin carries a dark secret. She decides that the only thing she can do to escape the stigma they carry in the village is to escape to America. So she writes to her mother’s favorite brother who lives in Chicago and asks him the help arrange for their passage. He obliges but once the sisters arrive in America they find that their new beginning is filled with hard work and deprivation. All the girls want is to feel loved and to have a home of their own but they have many miles to go and many lessons to learn before they will find one.

One of the things that makes Lynn Austin one of my favorite authors is her ability to write characters whose lives mirror real life no matter what time period she is writing from. This book takes place in the late 1800’s but you still find flawed characters dealing with issues that still plague us. Hunger, poverty, neglect, poor choices, etc.

She also has the ability to present the message of Christ without making it feel forced. It flows with the circumstances in the lives of the characters and like it would in real life. The characters in this story are not happy-go-lucky. They are angry with God for their circumstances and His apparent lack of care for their pain and we are present as they work their way through their grief.

My one complaint would be that I felt like the dialogue was strained in a few places. I still enjoyed this one a lot though and I would recommend it to readers of Christian Fiction and Historical Fiction. (4/5)

Two women were standing on high places, shielding their eyes from the blazing sun with their hands, peering into the distance in search of messengers from the battlefield. Each knew that her life depended on the outcome of the battle; but their lives depended on opposite results. -From The Triumph of Deborah, page 1-

The Triumph of Deborah opens with the war between the Canaanites and Israelites. Set in ancient Israel during the historical period of the Judges, the novel is a fictional re-working of the life of Deborah, a powerful prophetess and judge of Israel. According to biblical history, the war between Canaan and Israel lasted forty years. Etzioni-Halevy centers her novel towards the end of this time period.

Following the defeat of Canaan, Barak - a powerful man who leads Deborah’s army - takes as prisoner the beautiful, cold-hearted Asherah, the daughter of the Canann King Jabin. He also provides shelter for Asherah’s half sister (and King Jabin’s illegitimate daughter) Nogah who becomes a maid in Barak’s home. Barak is portrayed as a misogynistic man who seeks carnal pleasure with many women including Deborah, Asherah and Nogah. Interspersed in the romantic plot of the novel is the politics, history and culture of 11th and 12th century Israel.

Etzioni-Halevy has done her research and it shows. She aptly describes the agricultural lifestyle of the times, and introduces the prickly and complex leadership which made up the political structure of this theocracy. The battle scenes and aftermath are vivid and well-written. The central female characters demonstrate simultaneously the lack of women’s rights and the strength and power they managed to wield in a world dominated by men. Women of this time period aspired not only to leadership, but sought to find their own voice through literacy…and the novel’s most convincing moments are those which bring the women characters to life.

Etzioni-Halevy falls short, however, when she seeks to show the reader the intimate relationships between these women and Barak. At times the language feels stilted, awkward and contrived, especially during the love scenes.

Neither her mother nor her father nor Uriel had enlightened her about the pain slicing through her with the rupture of her barrier, receding as the heat unleashed itself in her, seeking an as yet unknown summit, mounting it, erupting into fire and a call of love for him, bringing forth the breaking of his own peak. -from The Triumph of Deborah, page 175-

In fairness to the author, I must admit that the historical romance genre is not one I typically read or enjoy and so when the novel veered in this direction I found it off-putting. What Etzioni-Halevy does best is to create scene and historical context for her characters. and it was this part of the book which piqued my interest.

Readers who prefer biblical fiction and historical romance will most likely enjoy this novel. I am grateful to the author for sending me a copy of her book to review.

Matt Rogers

218 pages

Zondervan Publishers

From the Publisher:

On April 16, 2007, the campus of Virginia Tech experienced a collective nightmare when thirty-three students were killed in the worst massacre in modern U.S. history. Following that horrendous event, VA Tech campus pastor Matt Rogers found himself asking and being asked, Where is God in all of this?The cliché-ridden, pat answers rang hollow. In this beautifully written reflection, Rogers illumines the path for experiencing God as truly good when life isn’t.

My thoughts:

This is beautifully written book that ponders the question that most of us have asked at some point in our life. How can God be good and loving when bad things like the events at Virginia Tech happen?

We go through the year after the tragedy with Matt Rogers.

In the first section of the book, which is titled A Heavy, Sinking, Sadness: Embracing The World That Is , the author recounts the shock, horror and then the tremendous pain and grief of the people connected with Virginia Tech. This section brings sharply into focus the fact that life is finite. A person can literally be here one moment and gone the next. This is a very heavy section but then tragedy and grief are very heavy subjects.

The next section is called Echoes of Eden: Embracing the World that Was. In this section we walk with Matt as he embraces the gifts all around him. The gift of creation, the kindness of people. He travels to Colorado and Japan in an effort to distance himself from the tragedy. Both trips are through the kindness of people. His experience with nature is healing and draws him to God. His conclusion is that:

Nature reminds us of the world that was, but that’s just it: that world is no more. Even the leftovers are infected. It is not enough to embrace the world that is, nor to remember that which was. My need, the great need of us all, is to know that there is a better world to come. -When Answers Aren’t Enough- page 146

This leads us into the final section of the book entitled Breathless Expectation: Imagining the World that Will Be where the author discusses Heaven and the fact that we are caught between two worlds. We live here and now and we suffer. But, as Christians, we wait in joyful hope for the restoration of all things and the return of Christ.

I found this book honest and at times, heart-wrenching. But in the end, it is also eminently hopeful. It didn’t offer up canned responses, it did exactly as I hoped it would. It pointed to the Creator. I would highly recommend this book to anyone grieving.(5/5)

Winter Haven, by Christian author Athol Dickson, is a mystery-suspense novel set on an island off the coast of Maine. Vera Gamble comes to the community of Winter Haven after receiving news that her missing brother’s body has finally been found after 13 years. After learning of some strange circumstances about the condition of the body, the local authorities refuse to let Vera go back to Dallas to bury her brother until they can look into the matter further. As a result, Vera is determined to poke around the island herself to see if she can uncover any details that might help resolve the case.

What she finds are community members that seem hostile, or at least aloof, to strangers and that they are generally unwilling to help with even simple directions for scouting the island. She does meet one man, Evan Frost, who is at least friendly to her and seems to enjoy her company. However, some of the citizens of the island warn her not to trust him, while he, in turn, says the same about them. As she searches for more details concerning the finding of her brother’s body, some very strange events start happening, but Vera is unsure whether they are actually happening, or whether they may just be in her own mind. Is she going insane, or just being tormented by an evil presence? She’s afraid of either option.

I was surprised at how suspenseful this book really was. It has a gothic feel to it, and I found myself very drawn into the story. One thing I was worried about was how Vera would be portrayed, but Mr. Dickson writes from the female perspective very convincingly. This book has mystery, suspense, and even some history and romance. I will be reading more of Athol Dickson’s work.

2008, 336 pp.
Rating: 4/5

Pete Gall
293 pages

“I wonder what it would be like to wake up and be with other people who are awake–to live with less fear, fewer lies, less compulsive consumption and all the other junk that keeps us anesthetized. I wonder if there are people who actually live that way. Weirdos, I’m sure.” -My Beautiful Idol pg 20

With that, the author leaves a good paying job in advertising and heads off to change the world for God. He ends up working in a rehab program, as a pastor’s assistant in an urban church, at a group home for mentally-disabled men, for a ministry program, and as a plumbing salesman.

His encounters with fellow Christians are at times comical and at other times heart-breaking. The hardest parts are when you recognize yourself in the people he meets and in his struggles and you understand that we often do good things for totally wrong reasons.

I found this book challenging as I followed the author from the brashness of youth and a desire to make a difference to the more mellow faith that is slightly tempered by life experiences. He does an excellent job of illustrating how we each hide behind our “things” and how God is rarely how we expect him to be. However, He is always there. The arguments are not always simple and I’ll admit that there were a couple of times that I had a hard time following. It was worth the effort though. (4/5)