A highly readable historical novel, with enough period detail for biblical purists and enough drama and romance for secular...
A well-executed debut historical novel that melds biblical history with steamy romance, intrigue and high drama.
In this book’s introduction, Cook writes of how she researched and presented living-history characterizations of biblical women in her Scripture-study classes, which she turned into this compelling collection of eight short stories. These “scandalous women,” who, as the subtitle notes, indeed changed the course of history, include extraordinary princesses, ordinary women, and even slaves and concubines. In these stories, sisters battle one another over societal rank as viciously as their male counterparts clash over territory, and Cook’s diverse cast conveys detailed, emotional insight into a panorama of human history. Bathsheba has an affair with King David and hastily marries him. She’s a shrewd operator who gains her own degree of political power, and she gives birth to the peaceful King Solomon, author of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes and builder of the protective shrine for the sacred Ark of the Covenant. After David’s death, as Solomon’s mother, she becomes the first queen mother of Israel. Leah and Rachel each tell their side of a story that pits the two sisters against each other in a marriage-bed battle over Jacob, and Abraham’s wife Sarah, a princess, recounts how her faith journey led her to become the mother of Isaac at age 90. (Curiously, the story doesn’t include Sarah’s reaction to Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac.) Cook also gives voice to the lesser-known Hagar, Sarah’s servant slave, who, under Sarah’s orders, bore Abraham’s first son, Ishmael; in a fit of anger and jealousy, Sarah banishes both Hagar and Ishmael. The novel’s range of emotions and viewpoints make it a worthwhile read; each woman, no matter her rank or her hardship, learns the same universal lesson: Love conquers all, and mercy and forgiveness are at the heart of it. Eve, the mother of all humanity, tells her story in the book’s final chapter, a fitting closure for an exceptional narrative.
A highly readable historical novel, with enough period detail for biblical purists and enough drama and romance for secular readers.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-1449772673
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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