Authors: Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen
In writing this book, the author skillfully weaves together the lives of two women name Hadassah. The first Hadassah is better known as Queen Esther. The second Hadassah is the wife of Israel’s Prime Minister David ben Yuda.
The book begins with a letter written by Queen Esther to a young woman named Leah. The setting is after the death of Queen Esther’s husband and there’s a new king who is having his own search for a queen. Leah is one of the young women who has a chance to be queen. What makes her so special to Queen Esther is that Leah, too is Jewish. Queen Esther sees so much of herself in Leah and through letters is trying to help Leah become the new Queen.
Jump forward to present day Iraq. a commando team is sent on a mission in Iraq to rescue Jewish artifacts before they can be discovered and destroyed by the Iraqis. Among the artifacts are some ancient papers including letters from Queen Esther to Leah. One of the men in the group is Dr. Clive Osborn, a British-born antiquities expert who’s there as an adviser. What the team doesn’t know is that he’s actually Ari Meyer, a member of the Mossad. What the Mossad doesn’t even know is that he has his own personal agenda. It is Dr. Osborn’s job to go through the artifacts so he is the first to read the ancient papers. What he discovers could potentially change the course of history in the whole Middle East.
The book then moves on to introduce the modern day Hadassah. When we first meet her she barely escapes death at the hands of a suicide bomber. She survives because her beloved father pushes her out of the way. Hadassah is thrown into a deep depression. She finally decides the only way to snap out of it is to go on a quest to find the answer to one simple question: why?! This quest is at the heart of tying everything together including the past and present.
The plot is very intricate. I had a hard time figuring out just how much detail was needed to give enough flavor of the book without giving too much away.
There was a link at the back of the book for a site that was supposed to help the readers “decode fact from fiction in this novel.” I looked all over the site and couldn’t find anything. I do know that the majority of what was in the book is not found in Scripture. Whether or not the author had secular documents to support some of what he wrote, I don’t know.
There is a major flaw in the book. The author bases his whole writing on the assumption that the Hadassah of the Old Testament worshiped the same God as the modern day Hadassah. This is not based on Scripture. The Old Testament believers believed in the Triune God just as the New Testament believers. The Jews in Israel today deny the True God. So although I found the book well written and interesting, I cannot recommend this book for this very reason. Hadassah ben Yuda denies the very God Queen Esther worshiped and was willing to die rather than deny Him.
Reviewed by Lynn Worley
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