A sweeping and involving novel of one of the Bible’s most enigmatic minor figures.
A historical novel about an enslaved man set in Christianity’s early years.
Fischer has chosen one of the more evocative parts of the New Testament as raw material for this debut novel: St. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon, which mentions Onesimus, thought by most scholars to be a man who escaped Philemon’s enslavement. The tone in the letter is intriguingly affectionate toward Onesimus, and in this book, Fischer spins a larger narrative while imagining his backstory, making him the son of a warrior of the Germanic Chatti people, who warred with the Romans. Young Onesimus, born with the name Cotto, has been raised lovingly by his mother, Birga, who herself feels alienated by her own society, with its heavy drinking and animist religion: “They adored the sun and moon, oak trees and rivers, sprites and spirits that dwelt in groves and caves,” she reflects. “They built no altars, raised no places of worship, erected no distinct object to venerate or adore.” Birga venerates a smooth amber amulet, which she gives to Cotto shortly before he’s captured by the Romans and enters into a life of slavery. He’s always burning with the desire to return home and find his mother, and this framework allows Fischer to take his protagonist on a spiritual journey through the religions of the Roman world. This eventually brings the character into contact with Christianity, at which point Fischer’s story very neatly dovetails with the familiar New Testament story. The extent of the author’s research is obvious throughout the narrative, but it’s never oppressive. Indeed, he shows distinct skill at evoking the colorful atmosphere of ancient Rome: “Devotees streamed into the crowded temple courtyards as spirals of white, grey and black smoke rose from their sacrificial altars amid the bellowing of unfortunate oxen, bulls and cattle.” The combination of offbeat ideas and vivid period detail makes this an outstanding piece of Christian fiction.
A sweeping and involving novel of one of the Bible’s most enigmatic minor figures.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66553-987-6
Page Count: 504
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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