I wonder: what would it be like to be in love with a man, then forced to marry another, one you have never met? I have heard stories of women (and men) faced with such a dilemma and how they bravely went through with the marriage, some eventually coming to love their spouse and others regretting it the rest of their lives. And I have often thought how difficult it must be to sacrifice like that, not knowing the outcome. I know it must take much faith and resolve.
The main character in In the Aerie of the Wolf is in such a predicament. Anne Crofton must marry Lord Wolverton, Master of the Wolf's Aerie, even though she loves Reverend Michael Pennywaithe, the village parson. And when she arrives at the castle, Lord Wolverton tells he does not want her to look at him, because he is grotesquely deformed and that she would probably find him revolting. So, she has to wait until after they are married before she can see his face!
The book is full of romance and mystery, told with great emotion and depth of theology that any Christian will rejoice in as he/she reads of our King and His wonderful salvation.
I like how the author wrote about marital devotion and commitment and at the same time did not shy away from the sweet romance and passion involved in a truly good marriage relationship. Ms. Pruner quotes from the Bible (Song of Solomon!) and tastefully uses descriptive phrases and to convey the beautiful essence of a godly marriage. It is a refreshing change from the usual romance novels we so often see today.
The only caveat I would give for this book is that it should be read only by married people. It is written for our entertainment, but even more important, for our edification and instruction in godly living. I was convicted more than once while reading this book.
If you like historical fiction and would enjoy reading the language and customs of 18th century England, you will probably want to read In the Aerie of the Wolf.
I give this book 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
(I received this book from Pump Up Your Book! for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
Leonora Pruner was born in Dubuque, Iowa, but has lived most of her life in California. Writing has been an important activity since junior high. She graduated from Westmont College in 1953 and earned an MBA from Pepperdine University in 1981.
Fascination with a possible eighteenth-century English character led to five years of extensive research, which resulted in the 1981 and 1987 publication of two period novels. That time remains of great interest to the author, and she continues to use eighteenth-century England as a setting for her work.
Leonora married in 1953, and her family has expanded from two children to thirteen grandchildren and five great- grandchildren.
She lived in the Republic of Maldives from 1987 to 1997, where she collected folklore and taught economics and computer science. While there she wrote the first drafts of this book.
Other books by Leonora Pruner include Love’s Secret Storm, Love’s Silent Gift and Close to His Heart. Her next novel, In the Aerie of the Wolf, is due to be released soon.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Staci Carmichael, Marketing and Publicity Associate, Image Books/ / Waterbrook Multnomah, Divisions of Random House, Inc. for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joshua Harris is senior pastor of Covenant Life in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which belongs to the Sovereign Grace network of local churches. He is the author of Why Church Matters and several books on relationships, including the run-away bestseller, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. He and his wife, Shannon, have three children.
Dug Down Deep shows a new generation of Christians why words like theology and doctrine are the “pathway to the mysterious, awe-filled experience of knowing the living Jesus Christ.” Joshua Harris enthusiastically reminds readers that orthodoxy isn’t just for scholars. It is for anyone who longs to know and love God.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Multnomah Books (May 17, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1601423713
ISBN-13: 978-1601423719
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
MY RUMSPRINGA
“We’re all theologians. The question is
whether what we know about God is true.”
IT’S STRANGE TO SEE an Amish girl drunk. The pairing of a bonnet and a can of beer is awkward. If she were stumbling along with a jug of moonshine, it would at least match her long, dowdy dress. But right now she can’t worry about that. She is flat-out wasted. Welcome to rumspringa.
-
The Amish, people who belong to a Christian religious sect with roots in
Europe, practice a radical form of separation from the modern world. They live and dress with simplicity. Amish women wear bonnets and long, old fashioned dresses and never touch makeup. The men wear wide-rimmed straw hats, sport bowl cuts, and grow chin curtains—full beards with the mustaches shaved off.
My wife, Shannon, sometimes says she wants to be Amish, but I know this isn’t true. Shannon entertains her Amish fantasy when life feels too complicated or when she’s tired of doing laundry. She thinks life would be easier if she had only two dresses to choose from and both looked the same. I tell her that if she ever tried to be Amish, she would buy a pair of jeans and ditch her head covering about ten minutes into the experiment. Besides, she would never let me grow a beard like that.
Once Shannon and her girlfriend Shelley drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a weekend of furniture and quilt shopping in Amish country. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast located next door to an Amish farm. One morning Shannon struck up a conversation with the inn’s owner, who had lived among the Amish his entire life. She asked him questions, hoping for romantic details about the simple, buggy-driven life. But instead he complained about having to pick up beer cans every weekend.
Beer cans?
“Yes,” he said, “the Amish kids leave them everywhere. ”That’s when he told her about rumspringa. The Amish believe that before a young person chooses to commit to the Amish church as an adult, he or she should have the chance to freely explore the forbidden delights of the outside world. So at age sixteen everything changes for Amish teenagers. They go from milking cows and singing hymns to living like debauched rock stars.
In the Pennsylvania Dutch language, rumspringa literally means “running around.” It’s a season of doing anything and everything you want with zero rules. During this time—which can last from a few months to several years—all the restrictions of the Amish church are lifted. Teens are free to shop at malls, have sex, wear makeup, play video games, do drugs, use cell phones, dress however they want, and buy and drive cars. But what they seem to enjoy most during rumspringa is gathering at someone’s barn, blasting music, and then drinking themselves into the ground. Every weekend, the man told Shannon, he had to clean up beer cans littered around his property following the raucous, all-night Amish parties.
When Shannon came home from her Lancaster weekend, her Amish aspirations had diminished considerably. The picture of cute little Amish girls binge drinking took the sheen off her idealistic vision of Amish life. We completed her disillusionment when we rented a documentary about the rite of rumspringa called Devil’s Playground. Filmmaker Lucy Walker spent three years befriending, interviewing, and filming Amish teens as they explored the outside world. That’s where we saw the drunk Amish girl tripping along at a barn party. We learned that most girls continue to dress Amish even as they party—as though their clothes are a lifeline back to safety while they explore life on the wild side.
In the documentary Faron, an outgoing, skinny eighteen-year-old sells and is addicted to the drug crystal meth. After Faron is busted by the cops, he turns in rival drug dealers. When his life is threatened, Faron moves back to his parents’ home and tries to start over. The Amish faith is a good religion, he says. He wants to be Amish, but his old habits keep tugging on him.
A girl named Velda struggles with depression. During rumspringa she finds the partying empty, but after joining the church she can’t imagine living the rest of her life as an Amish woman. “God talks to me in one ear, Satan in the other,” Velda says. “Part of me wants to be like my parents, but the other part wants the jeans, the haircut, to do what I want to do.”1When she fails to convince her Amish fiancé to leave the church with her, she breaks off her engagement a month before the wedding and leaves the Amish faith for good. As a result Velda is shunned by her family and the entire community. Alone but determined, she begins to attend college.
Velda’s story is the exception. Eighty to 90 percent of Amish teens decide to return to the Amish church after rumspringa.2 At one point in the film, Faron insightfully comments that rumspringa is like a vaccination for Amish teens. They binge on all the worst aspects of the modern world long enough to make themselves sick of it. Then, weary and disgusted, they turn back to the comforting, familiar, and safe world of Amish life.
But as I watched, I wondered, What are they really going back to? Are they choosing God or just a safe and simple way of life?
I know what it means to wrestle with questions of faith. I know what it’s like for faith to be so mixed up with family tradition that it’s hard to distinguish between a genuine knowledge of God and comfort in a familiar way of life.
I grew up in an evangelical Christian family. One that was on the more conservative end of the spectrum. I’m the oldest of seven children. Our parents homeschooled us, raised us without television, and believed that old fashioned courtship was better than modern dating. Friends in our neighborhood probably thought our family was Amish, but that’s only because they didn’t know some of the really conservative Christian homeschool families. The truth was that our family was more culturally liberal than many homeschoolers. We watched movies, could listen to rock music (as long as it was Christian or the Beatles), and were allowed to have Star Wars and Transformers toys.
But even so, during high school I bucked my parents’ restrictions. That’s not to say my spiritual waywardness was very shocking. I doubt Amish kids would be impressed by my teenage dabbling in worldly pleasure. I never did drugs. Never got drunk. The worst things I ever did were to steal porn magazines, sneak out of the house at night with a kid from church, and date various girls behind my parents’ backs. Although my rebellion was tame in comparison, it was never virtue that held me back from sin. It was lack of opportunity. I shudder to think what I would have done with a parent sanctioned season of rumspringa.
The bottom line is that my parents’ faith wasn’t really my faith. I knew how to work the system, I knew the Christian lingo, but my heart wasn’t in it. My heart was set on enjoying the moment.
Recently a friend of mine met someone who knew me in early high school. “What did she remember about me?” I asked.
“She said you were girl crazy, full of yourself, and immature,” my friend told me.
Yeah, she knew me, I thought. It wasn’t nice to hear, but I couldn’t argue.
I didn’t know or fear God. I didn’t have any driving desire to know him.
For me, the Christian faith was more about a set of moral standards than belief and trust in Jesus Christ.
During my early twenties I went through a phase of blaming the church I had attended in high school for all my spiritual deficiencies. Evangelical mega churches make good punching bags.
My reasoning went something like this: I was spiritually shallow because the pastors’ teaching had been shallow. I wasn’t fully engaged because they hadn’t done enough to grab my attention. I was a hypocrite because everyone else had been a hypocrite. I didn’t know God because they hadn’t provided enough programs. Or they hadn’t provided the right programs. Or maybe they’d had too many programs.
All I knew was that it was someone else’s fault.
Blaming the church for our problems is second only to the popular and easy course of blaming our parents for everything that’s wrong with us. But the older I get, the less I do of both. I hope that’s partly due to the wisdom that comes with age. But I’m sure it’s also because I am now both a parent and a pastor. Suddenly I have a lot more sympathy for my dad and mom and the pastors at my old church. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
At the church where I now pastor (which I love), some young adults remind me of myself when I was in high school. They are church kids who know so much about Christian religion and yet so little about God. Some are passive, completely ambivalent toward spiritual things. Others are actively straying from their faith—ticked off about their parents’ authority, bitter over a rule or guideline, and counting the minutes until they turn eighteen and can disappear. Others aren’t going anywhere, but they stay just to go through the motions. For them, church is a social group.
It’s strange being on the other side now. When I pray for specific young men and women who are wandering from God, when I stand to preach and feel powerless to change a single heart, when I sit and counsel people and it seems nothing I can say will draw them away from sin, I remember the pastors from my teenage years. I realize they must have felt like this too. They must have prayed and cried over me. They must have labored over sermons with students like me in mind.
I see now that they were doing the best they knew how. But a lot of the time, I wasn’t listening.
During high school I spent most Sunday sermons doodling, passing notes, checking out girls, and wishing I were two years older and five inches taller so a redhead named Jenny would stop thinking of me as her “little brother.” That never happened.
I mostly floated through grown-up church. Like a lot of teenagers in evangelical churches, I found my sense of identity and community in the parallel universe of the youth ministry. Our youth group was geared to being loud, fast paced, and fun. It was modeled on the massive and influential, seeker-sensitive Willow Creek Community Church located outside Chicago. The goal was simple: put on a show, get kids in the building, and let them see that Christians are cool, thus Jesus is cool. We had to prove that being a Christian is, contrary to popular opinion and even a few annoying passages of the Bible, loads of fun. Admittedly it’s not as much fun as partying and having sex but pretty fun nonetheless.
Every Wednesday night our group of four-hundred-plus students divided into teams. We competed against each other in games and won points by bringing guests. As a homeschooler, of course I was completely worthless in the “bring friends from school” category. So I tried to make up for that by working on the drama and video team. My buddy Matt and I wrote, performed, and directed skits to complement our youth pastor’s messages. Unfortunately, our idea of complementing was to deliver skits that were not even remotely connected to the message. The fact that Matt was a Brad Pitt look-alike assured that our skits were well received (at least by the girls).
The high point of my youth-group performing career came when the pastor found out I could dance and asked me to do a Michael Jackson impersonation.
The album Bad had just come out. I bought it, learned all the dance moves, and then when I performed—how do I say this humbly?—I blew everyone away. I was bad (and I mean that in the good sense of the word bad ). The crowd went absolutely nuts. The music pulsed, and girls were screaming and grabbing at me in mock adulation as I moon walked and lip-synced my way through one of the most inane pop songs ever written. I loved every minute of it.
Looking back, I’m not real proud of that performance. I would feel better about my bad moment if the sermon that night had been about the depravity of man or something else that was even slightly related. But there was no connection. It had nothing to do with anything.
For me, dancing like Michael Jackson that night has come to embody my experience in a big, evangelical, seeker-oriented youth group. It was fun, it was entertaining, it was culturally savvy (at the time), and it had very little to do with God. Sad to say, I spent more time studying Michael’s dance moves for that drama assignment than I was ever asked to invest in studying about God.
Of course, this was primarily my own fault. I was doing what I wanted to do. There were other kids in the youth group who were more mature and who grew more spiritually during their youth-group stint. And I don’t doubt the good intentions of my youth pastor. He was trying to strike the balance between getting kids to attend and teaching them.
Maybe I wouldn’t have been interested in youth group if it hadn’t been packaged in fun and games and a good band. But I still wish someone had expected more of me—of all of us.
Would I have listened? I can’t know. But I do know that a clear vision of God and the power of his Word and the purpose of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection were lost on me in the midst of all the flash and fun.
There’s a story in the Bible of a young king named Josiah, who lived about 640 years before Christ. I think Josiah could have related tome—being religious but ignorant of God. Josiah’s generation had lost God’s Word. And I don’t mean that figuratively. They literally lost God’s Word. It sounds ridiculous, but they essentially misplaced the Bible.
If you think about it, this was a pretty big deal. We’re not talking about a pair of sunglasses or a set of keys. The Creator of the universe had communicated with mankind through the prophet Moses. He gave his law. He revealed what he was like and what he wanted. He told his people what it meant for them to be his people and how they were to live. All this was dutifully recorded on a scroll. Then this scroll, which was precious beyond measure, was stored in the holy temple. But later it was misplaced. No one knows how. Maybe a clumsy priest dropped it and it rolled into a dark corner.
But here’s the really sad thing: nobody noticed it was missing. No search was made. Nobody checked under the couch. It was gone and no one cared. For decades those who wore the label “God’s people” actually had no communication with him.
They wore their priestly robes, they carried on their traditions in their beautiful temple, and they taught their messages that were so wise, so insightful, so inspirational.
But it was all a bunch of hot air—nothing but their own opinions. Empty ritual. Their robes were costumes, and their temple was an empty shell.
This story scares me because it shows that it’s possible for a whole generation to go happily about the business of religion, all the while having lost a true knowledge of God.
When we talk about knowledge of God, we’re talking about theology. Simply put, theology is the study of the nature of God—who he is and how he thinks and acts. But theology isn’t high on many people’s list of daily concerns.
My friend Curtis says that most people today think only of themselves. He calls this “me-ology.” I guess that’s true. I know it was true of me and still can be. It’s a lot easier to be an expert on what I think and feel and want than to give myself to knowing an invisible, universe-creating God.
Others view theology as something only scholars or pastors should worry about. I used to think that way. I viewed theology as an excuse for all the intellectual types in the world to add homework to Christianity.
But I’ve learned that this isn’t the case. Theology isn’t for a certain group of people. In fact, it’s impossible for anyone to escape theology. It’s everywhere. All of us are constantly “doing” theology. In other words, all of us have some idea or opinion about what God is like. Oprah does theology. The person who says, “I can’t believe in a God who sends people to hell” is doing theology.
We all have some level of knowledge. This knowledge can be much or little, informed or uninformed, true or false, but we all have some concept of God (even if it’s that he doesn’t exist). And we all base our lives on what we think God is like.
So when I was spinning around like Michael Jackson at youth group, I was a theologian. Even though I wasn’t paying attention in church. Even though I wasn’t very concerned with Jesus or pleasing him. Even though I was more preoccupied with my girlfriend and with being popular. Granted I was a really bad theologian—my thoughts about God were unclear and often ignorant. But I had a concept of God that directed how I lived.
I’ve come to learn that theology matters. And it matters not because we want a good grade on a test but because what we know about God shapes the way we think and live. What you believe about God’s nature—what he is like, what he wants from you, and whether or not you will answer to him—affects every part of your life.
Theology matters, because if we get it wrong, then our whole life will be wrong.
I know the idea of “studying” God often rubs people the wrong way. It sounds cold and theoretical, as if God were a frog carcass to dissect in a lab or a set of ideas that we memorize like math proofs.
But studying God doesn’t have to be like that. You can study him the way you study a sunset that leaves you speechless. You can study him the way a man studies the wife he passionately loves. Does anyone fault him for noting her every like and dislike? Is it clinical for him to desire to know the thoughts and longings of her heart? Or to want to hear her speak?
Knowledge doesn’t have to be dry and lifeless. And when you think about it, exactly what is our alternative? Ignorance? Falsehood?
We’re either building our lives on the reality of what God is truly like and what he’s about, or we’re basing our lives on our own imagination and misconceptions.
We’re all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true.
In the days of King Josiah, theology was completely messed up. This isn’t really surprising. People had lost God’s words and then quickly forgot what the true God was like.
King Josiah was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah. People call Jeremiah the weeping prophet, and there was a lot to weep about in those days. “A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land,” Jeremiah said. “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way” (Jeremiah 5:30–31, NIV).
As people learned to love their lies about God, they lost their ability to recognize his voice. “To whom can I speak and give warning?” God asked. “Who will listen tome? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it” (Jeremiah 6:10, NIV).
People forgot God. They lost their taste for his words. They forgot what he had done for them, what he commanded of them, and what he threatened if they disobeyed. So they started inventing gods for themselves. They started borrowing ideas about God from the pagan cults. Their made-up gods let them live however they wanted. It was “me-ology” masquerading as theology.
The results were not pretty.
Messed-up theology leads to messed-up living. The nation of Judah resembled one of those skanky reality television shows where a houseful of barely dressed singles sleep around, stab each other in the back, and try to win cash. Immorality and injustice were everywhere. The rich trampled the poor. People replaced the worship of God with the worship of pagan deities that demanded religious orgies and child sacrifice. Every level of society, from marriage and the legal system to religion and politics, was corrupt.
The surprising part of Josiah’s story is that in the midst of all the distortion and corruption, he chose to seek and obey God. And he did this as a young man (probably no older than his late teens or early twenties). Scripture gives this description of Josiah: “He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left” (2 Kings 22:2, NIV).
The prophet Jeremiah called people to the same straight path of true theology and humble obedience:
Thus says the LORD:
“Stand by the roads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.” (Jeremiah 6:16)
In Jeremiah’s words you see a description of King Josiah’s life. His generation was rushing past him, flooding down the easy paths of man-made religion, injustice, and immorality.
They didn’t stop to look for a different path.
They didn’t pause to consider where the easy path ended.
They didn’t ask if there was a better way.
But Josiah stopped. He stood at a crossroads, and he looked. And then he asked for something that an entire generation had neglected, even completely forgotten. He asked for the ancient paths.
What are the ancient paths? When the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah used the phrase, he was describing obedience to the Law of Moses. But today the ancient paths have been transformed by the coming of Jesus Christ. Now we see that those ancient paths ultimately led to Jesus. We have not only truth to obey but a person to trust in—a person who perfectly obeyed the Law and who died on the cross in our place.
But just as in the days of Jeremiah, the ancient paths still represent life based on a true knowledge of God—a God who is holy, a God who is just, a God who is full of mercy toward sinners. Walking in the ancient paths still means relating to God on his terms. It still means receiving and obeying his self-revelation with humility and awe.
Just as he did with Josiah and Jeremiah and every generation after them, God calls us to the ancient paths. He beckons us to return to theology that is true. He calls us, as Jeremiah called God’s people, to recommit ourselves to orthodoxy.
The word orthodoxy literally means “right opinion.” In the context of Christian faith, orthodoxy is shorthand for getting your opinion or thoughts about God right. It is teaching and beliefs based on the established, proven, cherished truths of the faith. These are the truths that don’t budge. They’re clearly taught in Scripture and affirmed in the historic creeds of the Christian faith:
There is one God who created all things.
God is triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Bible is God’s inerrant word to humanity.
Jesus is the virgin-born, eternal Son of God.
Jesus died as a substitute for sinners so they could be forgiven.
Jesus rose from the dead.
Jesus will one day return to judge the world.
Orthodox beliefs are ones that genuine followers of Jesus have acknowledged From the beginning and then handed down through the ages. Take one of them away, and you’re left with something less than historic Christian belief.
When I watched the documentary about the Amish rite of rumspringa, what stood out to me was the way the Amish teenagers processed the decision of whether or not to join the Amish church. With few exceptions the decision seemed to have very little to do with God. They weren’t searching Scripture to see if what their church taught about the world, the human heart, and salvation was true. They weren’t wrestling with theology. I’m not implying that the Amish don’t have a genuine faith and trust in Jesus. But for the teens in the documentary, the decision was mostly a matter of choosing a culture and a lifestyle. It gave them a sense of belonging. In some cases it gave them a steady job or allowed them to marry the person they wanted.
I wonder how many evangelical church kids are like the Amish in this regard. Many of us are not theologically informed. Truth about God doesn’t define us and shape us. We have grown up in our own religious culture. And often this culture, with its own rituals and music and moral values, comes to represent Christianity far more than specific beliefs about God do.
Every new generation of Christians has to ask the question, what are we actually choosing when we choose to be Christians? Watching the stories of the Amish teenagers helped me realize that a return to orthodoxy has to be more than a return to a way of life or to cherished traditions. Of course the Christian faith leads to living in specific ways. And it does join us to a specific community. And it does involve tradition. All this is good. It’s important. But it has to be more than tradition. It has to be about a person—the historical and living person of Jesus Christ.
Orthodoxy matters because the Christian faith is not just a cultural tradition or moral code. Orthodoxy is the irreducible truths about God and his work in the world. Our faith is not just a state of mind, a mystical experience, or concepts on a page. Theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy matter because God is real, and he has acted in our world, and his actions have meaning today and for all eternity.
For many people, words like theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy are almost completely meaningless. Maybe they’re unappealing, even repellent.
Theology sounds stuffy.
Doctrine is something unkind people fight over.
And orthodoxy? Many Christians would have trouble saying what it is other than it calls to mind images of musty churches guarded by old men with comb-overs who hush and scold.
I can relate to that perspective. I’ve been there. But I’ve also discovered that my prejudice, my “theology allergy,” was unfounded.
This book is the story of how I first glimpsed the beauty of Christian theology. These pages hold the journal entries of my own spiritual journey—a journey that led to the realization that sound doctrine is at the center of loving Jesus with passion and authenticity. I want to share how I learned that orthodoxy isn’t just for old men but is for anyone who longs to behold a God who is bigger and more real and glorious than the human mind can imagine.
The irony of my story—and I suppose it often works this way—is that the very things I needed, even longed for in my relationship with God, were wrapped up in the very things I was so sure could do me no good. I didn’t understand that such seemingly worn-out words as theology, doctrine, and orthodoxy were the pathway to the mysterious, awe-filled experience of truly knowing the living Jesus Christ.
They told the story of the Person I longed to know.
I really like the way Josh Harris writes. I read his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye (I LOVE that book cover!) and it was as though I was sitting down with him in a one-on-one conversation. He is very real and personable as an author.
Dug Down Deep is written the same way. It is a systematic theology for the new believer, or for the "common man" who has never studied theology before. He makes it extremely understandable as well as enjoyable. He takes the topics of God, Man, the Bible, Jesus, Salvation, the Holy Spirit and Sanctification and helps us to comprehend them in his own unique way, with illustrations and stories that keep the reader inerested throughout the book.
I would highly recommend this book for all believers in Christ and for those who have questions about the things of God.
(I received this book from FIRST Wild Card for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
I remember reading Paul Maier's book called A Skeleton in God's Closet years ago. It was a little strange, but pretty good. But I didn't realize that he had written another one entitled More than a Skeleton. And I didn't know until I began reading The Constantine Codex that it had the same characters, ones that I did not remember, nor the story line (at least not enough to link it to this book). However, I pressed on and read and in the long run it did not seem to matter.
The Constantine Codex is about a couple who are archaeologists who find an ancient manuscript that contains writings which could change Christianity forever: writings that seem to be parts of the Bible that have been hidden for hundreds of years. And when the codex is stolen, they are in a race for their lives to find it and prove to the world that it is authentic.
I was intrigued by the premise of the book, but a little disturbed by the implication that there is more to the Bible out there than what we have had for centuries. I'm not sure how I would feel if this actually happened today. I like to believe that we now have all of the Scriptures that God intended for us to have. So I found it somewhat difficult to read.
The writing seemed stilted at times. Some parts didn't quite fit, like when the author jumped out of third person narrative to slip in little jokes or comments that broke the flow of the story.
I did like the parts that described the close relationship of Jon and Shannon (the husband and wife team). It was a sweet marriage and a great partnership.
(I received this book from Glass Road for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
Dr. Paul L. Maier is The Russell H. Seibert Professor of Ancient History at Western Michigan University. His novels include two historical documentaries: Pontius Pilate and The Flames of Rome, as well as a theological thriller that became #1 national bestseller in religious fiction: A Skeleton in God's Closet. A sequel,More Than a Skeleton, appeared in 2003. His non-fiction works include In the Fullness of Time, Josephus - The Essential Works, andEusebius -- The Church. More than five million Maier books are now in print in twenty languages, as well as over 250 scholarly articles and reviews in professional journals. He has also penned seven children's books, and produced three four-hour video series dealing with Jesus, St. Paul, and the early church.
Forever After by Deborah Raney is the second book in the series entitled Hanover Falls. It is the story of Lucas Vermontez, a firefighter who is involved in a fire where his father and several others are killed. Even though Lucas survives, he is crippled and scarred emotionally as a result.
A year after the tragedy that took his father's life, Lucas reconnects with Jenna Morgan, whose husband, Zach, also perished in the blaze. Jenna is struggling with trying to pay the bills that have continued to mount since her husband's death. When she loses her home, she runs to her in-laws for help. But when their relationship becomes strained, Jenna is faced with homelessness and must find another place to live.
Lucas and Jenna begin to lean on each other for support. However, secrets in Jenna's past creep in and threaten to destroy the happiness they have found. And Lucas' dreams of being a firefighter are crushed and must be replaced with new hope before he gives in to despair.
When I began reading Forever After, there were a few things that I found a little incredible about the plot. For example, there are two couples engaged to be married at the beginning of the book; three of the people are ones whose spouses died in the fire. One of the men is marrying the woman who (unintentionally) caused the fire that killed his wife. Although I felt sympathy for these couples, I just thought it was too much to believe that there would be all these people who would be engaged so soon after their spouses died. And when you add in Jenna and Lucas (whose spouses also died in the fire), the author seems to put too much "coincidences" into that part of her plot.
After saying that, I must say that I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes Christian romance books. The plot is unique and not "cookie-cutter" like so many others. The characters are real and the pacing of the book is just right.
(I received this book from Glass Road for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
DEBORAH RANEY is at work on her 20th novel. Her books have won the RITA Award, ACFW Carol Award, HOLT Medallion, National Readers' Choice Award, Silver Angel, and have twice been Christy Award finalists. Her first novel, A Vow to Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title. Forever After, second in her new Hanover Falls Novels series, will release in June from Howard/Simon & Schuster. Deb and her husband, Ken Raney, enjoy small-town life in Kansas. They are new empty nesters with four children and a growing quiver of grandchildren, all of whom live much too far away.
Fifteen-year-old Julien Losier just wants to fit in. But after his family moves to a small village in central France in hopes of outrunning the Nazis, he is suddenly faced with bigger challenges than the taunting of local teens. Nina Krenkel left her country to obey her father’s dying command: Take your brother and leave Austria. Burn your papers. Tell no one you are Jews. Alone and on the run, she arrives in Tanieux, France, dangerously ill and in despair. Thrown together by the chaos of war, Julien begins to feel the terrible weight of the looming conflict and Nina fights to survive. As France falls to the Nazis, Julien struggles with doing what is right, even if it is not enough—and wonders whether or not he really can save Nina from almost certain death. Based on the true story of the town of Le Chambon—the only French town honored by Israel for rescuing Jews from the Holocaust—How Huge the Night is a compelling, coming-of-age drama that will keep teens turning the pages as it teaches them about a fascinating period of history and inspires them to think more deeply about their everyday choices.
How Huge the Night is a WWII story of a little town in southern France and the people who live there. The authors (mother and daughter team) have lived in France and write this story from true events.
I quickly became engrossed in this book as I read about young people who find themselves caught up in a war that they know little about. There are different types of characters, such as Benjamin who is a German Jew seeking refuge; Julien, a native of France who wants to do the right thing but who comes to realize the depths of his sin and struggles with right and wrong; and Nina, a girl from Austria who, along with her brother, Gustav, is also seeking a place to escape the Nazis. All of these young people face trials that even the bravest adults would have trouble enduring.
Once again, I like how the gospel is woven throughout this book. One of the best passages in the book is:
"'Sin is for real, Julien. In you, in me, in Victor Bernard. We are bad people.' Grandpa was looking at him, his eyes deep with sorrow. Julien watched the wind whip the trees.
'Tell me what you believe about Jesus, Julien. What he did.'
'He...' His voice was a whisper. 'He died for our sins.' 'Do you believe that?' Did he? Jesus died. Jesus died for what I've done. 'It's true.'
It's true.
'He meant to, Julien. Nobody made him do it. He did it for what he wanted the most - for you and me to be able to come to him. After what we've done. It was worth that to him. That's what he wants. Us. To welcome us back.'
There were times as I was reading that I didn't understand who was speaking or what the authors were talking about for several sentences. It slowed down my reading and confused me a little. And the plot was fully developed, even though I thought the ending was somewhat unsatisfying.
Most readers who are interested in WWII novels would probably like this book. I give How Huge the Night 4 out of 5 stars.
(I received this book from Kregel for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
Interview with Heather and Lydia Munn, authors of How Huge the Night:
1. What influence has living in France had on the writing of this book?
Heather: I grew up in France, from two years old to about seventeen. Up to ninth grade I went to French public school. The town I lived in was only about an hour’s drive from Le Chambon-sur-Lignon where the true story happened. So when I wrote about Julien living in a small French town, going to school there, and so on, it was almost like writing about my own childhood—except I had to keep asking my dad what it was like forty or fifty years earlier! But it’s more than just the school part—the love for the land that I hope comes through in the book is very much rooted in my childhood—that specific landscape, those hills with genêt bushes on them and pastures and stone farmhouses and little woods—and also the people, the French country people and their culture that’s very rooted in the land, that’s a side of France that Americans don’t get to see a lot, and I love it.
Lydia: When you live in a country for almost thirty years, you grow to love it and its people. I’m glad to be able to write something very positive about France, to counter the mostly negative opinions that I find when I visit the US. Living close to the area where the events happened also made it relatively easy to get a good sense of the context of the story. For instance, I used the actual home of friends of ours who lived in Le Chambon as the model for the Losiers’ home in Tanieux.
2. How much research was involved in writing about historical events? How did you know how much historical detail to provide?
Heather: This might be a really good question for Mom; she did almost all the research and my impression is that it was an enormous amount. She made a timeline that went week by week and included major events of the book, events of the war, the passing of repressive or anti-semitic laws by the Vichy government, everything relevant. I would call her up whenever I had a doubt about anything, or even to ask her “This happened on this date, but how soon would they know about it?” I did do some research of my own when I needed some particular detail about the war, especially when trying to get a feel for what it was like to be there at that time, how people were thinking—what people’s feelings were about the surrender, how people felt about Marshal Petain and the Vichy government right after it was set up, and whether and how much that changed when they started collaborating with the Nazis. I have always had a sort of fascination for World War II and its stories and what you can learn from them about good and evil.
Lydia: I have always felt that wartime is a fascinating period to study, though difficult at times, because war is so ugly. War brings out the worst in many people. But it brings out the best in others. And that best shines all the brighter for the very dark context in which you find it. My own interest in this period of French history came about because I wanted to tell the Le Chambon story. I read all the primary sources I could find, visited the town and talked with a few people who lived through the events. I also read all that I could about World War II as seen from the French viewpoint. Knowing the details of the Vichy government, the laws put in place, and so on, enabled us to put some of them into the book. We tried to put in details that Julien would have known about and, sometimes, worried over.
3. How Huge the Night is written for 14- to 17-year-olds, but your readership can certainly go beyond that. How did you get into the mind of a teenager to write this authentically, and yet manage to pen a book that would be of interest to all ages?
Lydia: Even though the main character is a fifteen-year-old, this book was, from the beginning, more than just his story. It’s the story of a family and of a town. The choices that these larger circles were making have an influence on Julien’s choices. There are earlier versions of the book in which some of the scenes were written from Mama’s viewpoint. These ended up being cut in the final version. But behind the story the reader senses Mama’s dread of war which stems from her experiences in World War I. And Papa’s sense of history and of what the invasion really means, as well as Pastor Alex’s clear sightedness—these all form a very real part of the story. I believe this larger picture is what appeals to older readers.
Heather: When I was writing my initial version (after Mom’s initial version) I wasn’t even necessarily writing it for teenagers. But of course the book was chiefly about a teenager, and I wanted him to be a real teenager. I think a real teenager confronted by hard realities is interesting to any age. I still remember very vividly being a teenager and I remember it as a time when everything was felt so deeply, everything had huge significance. You know, when a young child starts learning about the world around him, he sees everything with totally fresh eyes and so he really sees it; and the teenager or young adult is at the end of that journey, at the part where he learns for the first time the really hard realities of life. Pain, and war, and necessity, and death, and the fact that there is no guarantee in life that there will always be someone standing between you and the fear. Watching someone learn those things for the first time, really see their significance, is an awesome thing, in the old sense of the word. That’ll never be boring, and I think an adult to whom it is boring might’ve gone too far into adulthood.
4. What do you hope readers take away from reading How Huge the Night?
Heather: A lot of things. Maybe I shouldn’t say all of them in case I make it too obvious! I think one thing is the huge significance of our daily choices, and how heroism isn’t generally glorious or even clear-cut. The choices that people really made during World War II, the early years, the part I’m writing about, were mostly made in the dark. The usual stuff you see in books and movies—“Am I going to risk my life to save these people from certain death?”—that’s after 1943. In the early years nobody knew about the death camps, not in France anyhow, and under the Vichy government, especially, nobody knew what was going to happen to the Jews if they got arrested, or to themselves if they protected them—they just knew something might happen, and it might be something bad. So it was easy for a lot of people to think, “Oh, but they wouldn’t kill them or anything, right?” because they had enough to worry about already. There was a food shortage, life was hard. The people who did the right thing, a lot of it was just the daily choosing to keep their eyes open, seek out the truth, really take a look at the people in front of them and ask themselves how God was calling them to respond. Julien ends up doing some very good things, but they’re very hidden, not a lot of people are ever going to know about them. And the people who do the real, profound good in the world, that’s how they do it. In a confusing, terrible, messy situation they keep listening to God; and when they hear, they obey; and what they do changes things. But mostly, no one ever knows.
How Huge the Night (978-0-8254-3310-8, $14.99p) by Heather Munn and Lydia Munn is published by Kregel PublicationsMy thoughts on the book:
(Be sure and read at the bottom of this post to see how you can enter to win a copy of The Ambition!)
I have heard of Lee Strobel for years. He is the author of several apologetic books. He is a former atheist and wrote his first book, The Case for Christ, after setting out to prove Christianity as being false and then finding it to be true.
The Ambition is Mr. Strobel's debut in fiction, and I must say, it is a very impressive first novel. Fast-paced and interesting, the novel kept me entertained throughout.
The story is about a pastor of a megachurch in Chicago who becomes embroiled in politics and in the process is involved with people who are connected with the mafia.
Pastor Eric Snow decides to leave his church in order to become a U.S. senator, while the other contender for the seat turns out to be a judge who has agreed to fix a mob trial in exchange for a bribe. A newspaper reporter attempts to uncover secrets in both the candidate's lives and finds himself in danger.
Quoting from the blurb on the book cover:
"Strobel weaves these edgy characters into an intricate thriller set within a gleaming suburban megachurch, a big city newspaper struggling for survival, and the shadowy corridors of political intrigue. The riveting climax is as unforgettable as the contract killing that punctuates the opening scene."
This is a great first novel. I will be looking for more to come from Mr. Strobel. He has used his past experiences as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune to write a book that seems to be taken directly from today's news. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.
(I received this book from Anne Staszalek at AuthorsOnTheWeb for review purposes. I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are completely my own.)
Now, for the GIVEAWAY! Would you like to win a copy of this new novel? All you have to do is add your name and email to the comment section. I will choose a winner on July 5th, so don't wait to enter!
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Lynette Kittle, Senior Publicist, WaterBrook Multnomah, a Division of Random House for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kristen Heitzmann’s gift of crafting stories has ranked her as the award-winning and best-selling author of two historical series and twelve contemporary, psychological and romantic suspense novels including Indivisible. As an artist and musician, Kristen lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and a continuous stream of extended family, various pets, and wildlife.
Award-wining and best-selling author Kristen Heitzmann brings another suspense story to life in Indelible (WaterBrook, May 3, 2011).
Follow Trevor MacDaniel, a high country outfitter, as he rescues a toddler from the jaws of a mountain lion. Discover how he can’t foresee the far-reaching consequences of his action, how it will entwine his life with gifted sculptor, Natalie Reeve—and attract a grim admirer.
Find out how Trevor’s need to guard and protect is born of tragedy, prompting his decision to become a search and rescue volunteer. And how Natalie’s gift of sculpting comes from an unusual disability that seeks release through her creative hands.
See how in each other they learn strength and courage as they face an incomprehensible foe…a twisted soul, who is drawn by the heroic story of the child’s rescue. One who sees Trevor as archangel and adversary, and threatens their peaceful mountain community—testing Trevor’s limits by targeting their most helpless and innocent.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99 Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: WaterBrook Press (May 3, 2011) Language: English ISBN-10: 1400073103 ISBN-13: 978-1400073108
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
A veined bolt of lightning sliced the ozone-scented sky as Trevor plunged down the craggy slope, dodging evergreen spires like slalom poles. Rocks and gravel spewed from his boots and caromed off the vertical pitch.
“Trevor.” Whit skidded behind him. “We’re not prepared for this.”
No. But he hurled himself after the tawny streak. He was not losing that kid.
Trevor leaped past a man—probably the dad—gripping his snapped shinbone. Whit could help there. Digging his heels into the shifting pine needles, Trevor gave chase, outmatched and unwavering. His heart pumped hard as he neared the base of the gulch, jumping from a lichen-crusted stone to a fallen trunk. The cougar jumped the creek, lost its grip, and dropped the toddler. Yes.
He splashed into the icy flow, dispersing scattered leaves like startled goldfish. After driving his hand into the water, he gripped a stone and raised it. Not heavy, not nearly heavy enough.
Lowering its head over the helpless prey, the mountain lion snarled a spine-chilling warning. There was no contest, but the cat, an immature male, might not realize its advantage, might not know its fear of man was mere illusion. Thunder crackled. Trevor tasted blood where he’d bitten his tongue.
Advancing, he engaged the cat’s eyes, taunting it to charge or run. The cat backed up, hissing. A yearling cub, able to snatch a tot from the trail, but unprepared for this fearless challenge. Too much adrenaline for fear. Too much blood on the ground.
With a shout, he heaved the rock. As the cat streaked up the mountainside, he charged across the creek to the victim. He’d steeled himself for carnage, but even so, the nearly severed arm, the battered, bloody feet… His nose filled with the musky lion scent, the rusty smell of blood. He reached out. No pulse.
He dropped to his knees as Whit joined him from behind, on guard. He returned the boy’s arm to the socket, and holding it there with one trembling hand, Trevor began CPR with his other. On a victim so small, it took hardly any force, his fingers alone performing the compressions. The lion had failed to trap the victim’s face in its mouth. By grabbing the back of the head, neck, and shoulder, it had actually protected those vulnerable parts. But blood streamed over the toddler’s face from a deep cut high on the scalp, and he still wasn’t breathing.
Trevor bent to puff air into the tiny lungs, compressed again with his fingers, and puffed as lightly as he would to put out a match. Come on. He puffed and compressed while Whit watched for the cat’s return. Predators fought for their kills—even startled ones.
A whine escaped the child’s mouth. He jerked his legs, emitting a highpitched moan. Trevor shucked his jacket and tugged his T-shirt off over his head. He tied the sleeves around the toddler’s arm and shoulder, pulled the rest around, and swaddled the damaged feet—shoes and socks long gone. Thunder reverberated. The first hard drops smacked his skin. Tenderly, he pulled the child into his chest and draped the jacket over as a different rumble chopped the air. They had started up the mountain to find two elderly hikers who’d been separated from their party. Whit must have radioed the helicopter. He looked up. This baby might live because two old guys had gotten lost.
In the melee at the trailhead, Natalie clutched her sister-in-law’s hands, the horror of the ordeal still rocking them. As Aaron and little Cody were airlifted from the mountain, she breathed, “They’re going to be all right.”
“You don’t know that.” Face splotched and pale, Paige swung her head. Though her hair hung in wet blond strands, her makeup was weatherproof, her cologne still detectable. Even dazed, her brother’s wife looked and smelled expensive.
“The lion’s grip protected Cody’s head and neck,” one of the paramedics had told them. “It could have been so much worse.”
Paige started to sob. “His poor arm. What if he loses his arm?”
“Don’t go there.” What good was there in thinking it?
“How will he do the stuff boys do? I thought he’d be like Aaron, the best kid on the team.”
“He’ll be the best kid no matter what.”
“In the Special Olympics?”
Natalie recoiled at the droplets of spit that punctuated the bitter words.
“He’s alive, Paige. What were the odds those men from search and rescue would be right there with a helicopter already on standby?”
“We shouldn’t have needed it.” Paige clenched her teeth. “Aaron’s supposed to be recovering. He would have been if you weren’t such a freak.”
“What?” She’d endured Paige’s unsubtle resentment, but “ freak” ?
“Let me go.” Paige jerked away, careening toward the SUV.
Natalie heard the engine roar, the gravel flung by the spinning tires, but all she saw was the hate in Paige’s eyes, the pain twisting her brother’s face as he held his fractured leg, little Cody in the lion’s maw, the man leaping after…
She needed to clear the images, but it wouldn’t happen here. Around her, press vans and emergency vehicles drained from the lot, leaving the scent of exhaust and tire scars in the rusty mud. Paige had stranded her.
“Freak.” Heart aching, she took a shaky step toward the road. It hadn’t been that long a drive from the studio. A few miles. Maybe five. She hadn’t really watched—because Aaron was watching for her. Off the roster for a pulled oblique, he had seen an opportunity to finalize her venture and help her move, help her settle in, and see if she could do it. She’d been so thankful. How could any of them have known it would come to this? Trevor’s spent muscles shook with dumped adrenaline. He breathed the moist air in through his nose, willing his nerves to relax. Having gotten all they were going to get from him, most of the media had left the trailhead, following the story to the hospital. Unfortunately, Jaz remained.
She said, “You live for this, don’t you?” Pulling her fiery red hair into a messy ponytail didn’t disguise her incendiary nature or the smoldering coals reserved for him. He accepted the towel Whit handed him and wiped the rain from his head and neck, hoping she wouldn’t see the shakes. The late-summer storm had lowered the temperature enough she might think he was shivering.
“Whose idea was it to chase?”
“It’s not like you think about it. You just act.” Typing into her BlackBerry, she said, “Acted without thinking.”
“Come on, Jaz.” She couldn’t still be on his case.
“Interesting your being in place for the dramatic rescue of a pro athlete’s kid. Not enough limelight lately?”
“We were on another search.” She cocked her eyebrow. “You had no idea the victim’s dad plays center field for the Rockies?”
“Yeah, I got his autograph on the way down.” He squinted at the nearly empty parking lot. “Aren’t you following the story?”
“What do you think this is?”
“You got the same as everyone. That’s all I have to say.”
“You told us what happened. I want the guts. How did it feel? What were you thinking?” She planted a hand on her hip. “Buy me a drink?” He’d rather go claw to claw with another mountain lion. But considering the ways she could distort this, he relented. “The Summit?”
“I’d love to.” She pocketed her BlackBerry and headed for her car. Whit raised his brows at her retreat. “Still feeling reckless?”
“Sometimes it’s better to take her head on.”
“Like the cat?” Whit braced his hips.
“The cat was young, inexperienced.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“There was a chance the child wasn’t dead.”
“What if it hadn’t run?”
“If it attacked, you’d have been free to grab the kid.”
“Nice for you, getting mauled.”
“If it got ugly, I’d have shot it.”
“Shot?”
He showed him the Magnum holstered against the small of his back.
Whit stared at him, stone-faced. “You had your gun and you used a rock?”
“I was pretty sure it would run.”
“Pretty sure,” Whit said. “So, what? It wouldn’t be fair to use your weapon?”
It had been the cat against him on some primal level the gun hadn’t entered into. He said, “I could have hit the boy, or the cat could have dropped him down the gulch. When it did let go, I realized its inexperience and knew we had a chance to scare it off. Department of Wildlife can decide its fate. I was after the child.”
“Okay, fine.” With a hard exhale, Whit rubbed his face. “This was bad.”
Trevor nodded. Until today, the worst he’d seen over four years of rescues was a hiker welded to a tree by lightning and an ice climber’s impalement on a jagged rock spear. There’d been no death today, but Whit looked sick. “You’re a new dad. Seeing that little guy had to hit you right in the gut.” Whit canted his head.
“I’m just saying.” Trevor stuffed his shaking hands into his jacket pockets. The storm passed, though the air still smelled of wet earth and rain. He drove Whit back, then went home to shower before meeting Jazmyn Dufoe at the Summit. Maybe he’d just start drinking now. Arms aching, Natalie drove her hands into the clay. On the huge, square Corian table, two busts looked back at her: Aaron in pain, and Paige, her fairy-tale life rent by a primal terror that sprang without warning. She had pushed and drawn and formed the images locked in her mind, even though her hands burned with the strain.
No word had come from the Children’s Hospital in Denver, where the police chief said they’d taken Cody, or from the hospital that had Aaron. Waiting to hear anything at all made a hollow in her stomach. She heaved a new block of clay to the table, wedged and added it to the mound already softened. Just as she started to climb the stepstool, her phone rang. She plunged her hands into the water bucket and swabbed them with a towel, silently begging for good news. “Aaron?”
Not her brother, but a nurse calling. “Mr. Reeve asked me to let you know he came through surgery just fine. He’s stable, and the prognosis is optimistic. He doesn’t want you to worry.”
Natalie pressed her palm to her chest with relief. “Did he say anything about Cody? Is there any news?”
“No, he didn’t say. I’m sure he’ll let you know as soon as he hears something.”
“Of course. Thank you so much for calling.”
Natalie climbed back onto the stool, weary but unable to stop. Normally, the face was enough, but this required more. She molded clay over stiff wire-mesh, drawing it up, up, proportionately taller than an average man, shoulders that bore the weight of other people’s fear, one arm wielding a stone, the other enfolding the little one. The rescuer hadn’t held both at once, but she combined the actions to release both images.
She had stared hard at his face for only a moment before he plunged over the ridge, yet retained every line and plane of it. Determination and fortitude in the cut of his mouth, selfless courage in the eyes. There’d been fear for Cody. And himself ? Not of the situation, but something…
It came through her hands in the twist of his brow. A heroic face, aware of the danger, capable of failing, unwilling to hold back. Using fingers and tools, she moved the powerful images trapped by her eidetic memory through her hands to the clay, creating an exterior storage that freed her mind, and immortalizing him—whoever he was. The Summit bar was packed and buzzing, the rescue already playing on televisions visible from every corner. With the whole crowd toasting and congratulating him, Jaz played nice—until he accepted her ride home and infuriated her all over again by not inviting her in.
He’d believed that dating women whose self-esteem reached egotistical meant parting ways wouldn’t faze them. Jaz destroyed that theory. She was not only embittered but vindictive. After turning on the jets, Trevor sank into his spa, letting the water beat his lower- and mid-lumbar muscles.
He pressed the remote to open the horizontal blinds and to look out through the loft windows.
Wincing, he reached in and rubbed the side of his knee. That plunge down the slope had cost him, but, given the outcome, he didn’t consider it a judgment error. That honor went to putting himself once more at the top of Jaz’s hate list. He maneuvered his knee into the pressure of a jet. When he got out, he’d ice it. If he got out.
He closed his eyes and pictured the battered toddler. The crowd’s attention had kept the thoughts at bay, easy to talk about the cat, how mountain lions rarely attacked people, how he and Whit had scared it off, how DOW would euthanize if they caught it, how his only priority had been to get the child. He had segued into the business he and Whit had opened the previous spring, rock and ice climbing, land and water excursions, cross-country ski and snowshoe when the season turned.
That was his business, but rescuing was in his blood, had been since his dad made him the man of the house by not coming home one night or any thereafter. At first, the nightmares had been bad—all the things that could go wrong: fire, snakes, tarantulas, tornadoes. They had populated his dreams until he woke drenched in sweat, cursing his father for trusting him to do what a grown man couldn’t.
The phone rang. He sloshed his arm up, dried his hand on the towel lying beside it, and answered. “Hey, Whit.”
“You doing okay?”
“Knee hurts. You?”
“Oh sure. You know—”
“Hold on. There’s someone at the door.”
“Yeah. Me and Sara.”
Trevor said, “Cute. Where’s your key?”
“Forgot it.”
Gingerly, he climbed over the side, then wrapped a towel around his hips, and let them in.
“You mind?” Whit frowned at the towel, although Sara hadn’t batted an eye.
She came in and made herself at home. Whit carried their twomonth- old asleep in his car seat to a resting place. Trevor threw on Under Armour shorts and a clean T-shirt, then rejoined them. “So what’s up?”
“Nice try, Trevor.” Sara fixed him with a look. “I especially like the practiced nonchalance.”
He grinned. “Hey, I’ve got it down.”
“With Jaz, maybe. No claw marks?”
“Too public.”
Whit rubbed his wife’s shoulder. “We knew you’d worry this thing, so Sara brought the remedy.”
She drew the Monopoly box out of her oversize bag with a grin that said she intended to win and would, wearing them down with her wheeling and dealing. “I’ll take that silly railroad off your hands. It’s no good to you when I have the other three.”
He rubbed his hands, looking into her bold blue eyes. “Bring it.”
The mindless activity and their chatter lightened his mood as Sara had intended. She knew him as well as Whit, maybe better. Each time he caught the concern, he reassured her with a smile. He’d be fine.
Whit played his get-out-of-jail card and freed his cannon. “Hear what’s going in next door to us?”
“No.”
“An art gallery.”
“Yeah?” Trevor adjusted the ice pack on his knee.
“Place called Nature Waits.”
“Waits for what?”
Whit shrugged. “Have to ask the lady sculptor.”
“Won’t exactly draw for our kind of customer.”
“At least it won’t compete.” Sara rolled the dice and moved her pewter shoe. “Another outfitter could have gone in. I’ll buy Park Place.”
Both men mouthed, “I’ll buy Park Place.”
She shot them a smile.
Two hours later, she had bankrupted them with her thoughtful loans and exorbitant use of hotels on prime properties. He closed the door behind them, and it hit. He raised the toilet seat and threw up, then pressed his back to the wall and rested his head, breathing deeply. The shaking returned, and this time he couldn’t blame adrenaline. He had literally puffed the life back into that tiny body. If that child had died in his arms…
Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed Alone th’ antagonist of Heaven, nor less Than Hell’s dread Emperor, with pomp supreme, And god-like imitated state.
Child snatched from lion’s jaws. Two-year-old spared in deadly attack. Rescuer Trevor MacDaniel, champion of innocents, protector of life. Cameras rolling, flashes flashing, earnest newscasters recounted the tale. “On this mountain, a miracle. What could have been a tragedy became a triumph through the courage of this man who challenged a mountain lion to save a toddler attacked while hiking with his father, center-fielder…”
He consumed the story in drunken drafts. Eyes swimming, he gazed upon the noble face, the commanding figure on the TV screen. In that chest beat valiance. In those hands lay salvation. His heart made a slow drum in his ears. A spark ignited, purpose quickening.
Years he’d waited. He spread his own marred hands, instruments of instruction, of destruction. With slow deliberation, he closed them into fists. What use was darkness if not to try the light?
The main character in In the Aerie of the Wolf
is in such a predicament. Anne Crofton must marry Lord Wolverton, Master of the Wolf's Aerie, even though she loves Reverend Michael Pennywaithe, the village parson. And when she arrives at the castle, Lord Wolverton tells he does not want her to look at him, because he is grotesquely deformed and that she would probably find him revolting. So, she has to wait until after they are married before she can see his face! 
. Her next novel, In the Aerie of the Wolf
(I LOVE that book cover!)
years ago. It was a little strange, but pretty good. But I didn't realize that he had written another one entitled 
. And I didn't know until I began reading 
that it had the same characters, ones that I did not remember, nor the story line (at least not enough to link it to this book). However, I pressed on and read and in the long run it did not seem to matter.
is the second book in the series entitled 
. 
It is the story of Lucas Vermontez, a firefighter who is involved in a fire where his father and several others are killed. Even though Lucas survives, he is crippled and scarred emotionally as a result. 
!)
, after setting out to prove Christianity as being false and then finding it to be true.
is Mr. Strobel's debut in fiction, and I must say, it is a very impressive first novel. Fast-paced and 
