Meet the Healer in A War Within by @NathanDMaki for #EggcerptExchange

Today on The Maze for the Eggcerpt Exchange, I introduce fellow novelist of Ancient Rome,
Nathan Maki, and his epic novel
A War Within: The Healer.

Synopsis

How far would you go to free your mother from slavery?

Suzanna ben Ya’ir is a slave to the king of Hatra, the indomitable fortress city. She dreams of escaping the harem and finding her way back to Rome to find her son, but she is held prisoner by the king’s soldiers, towering walls, and untold miles of murderous desert. To escape she must earn coins as a healer among the common folk of the city and join forces with a Hatran guard who secretly loves her. But when the Roman legions arrive to besiege the city her hope of escape seems more unattainable than ever.

Theudas ben Ya’ir is a fierce warrior and a member of the Roman Emperor’s guard, but he also harbors a deadly secret – he is a Christian. Theudas longs to find his mother and rescue her from slavery, but the Emperor, his legions, and Plautianus – the ruthless leader of the Praetorians – are besieging the city where she is held captive. Now Theudas must break the Roman siege and infiltrate the hostile city, find his mother and help her escape. But doing so will mean committing treason against the Emperor. Will his quest cost Theudas his new-found faith and the life of the woman he loves?

With Suzanna’s life hanging in the balance, can she and Theudas defy the odds and reunite? And if so, can they hope to survive?

Excerpt
Suzanna wept with shame. She wept for the hope of escape that she knew to be false even as she clung to it. The paltry few coins she managed to save would never be enough to convince a merchant to risk the wrath of the king by smuggling her out of this city and across the wasteland surrounding it. The course of her life stretched out before her, as clear and brutal as the sandy, sun-baked road that led west toward the life she would never see again. She would go from the harem to the scullery as her beauty continued to fade, and finally, long after all color had been bleached from her life, to the grave.

She tried to reach for her faith, fumbled for it with groping fingers. She could brush it, could feel the residual warmth of the fire that once burned in her, but she couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t stir it to life again. Jehovah had forsaken her and so she knelt in a pile of rotting garbage against a filthy stone wall and wept.

Her pain seemed inexhaustible but her tears were not and finally her shuddering shoulders slowed and her sobs subsided. She was leaning against the wall now, her cheek against cold stone. In that moment, Suzanna felt a strange sense of clarity. She had two choices. She could lay here and die, or get up and go on. It was the hardest decision she had ever faced.

In the end, a dying man made the decision for her.

Tonight is the night Binyamin will pass from this world and I must be there to ease that passing. I must be there. I must get up. I must make at least this one last effort.

The heat of the day was fully gone now and she was stiff with cold. She struggled to her feet and stared up at the crooked slice of starry sky above. What time was it? Time had had no meaning while she wept. It could have been minutes or hours. But it was still darkest night. She still had time. She brushed at her the skirt of her tunic in a futile effort to wipe away the muck, then swept a sleeve across her eyes and beneath her nose. Stepping free of the alley she looked around, took her bearings, and started off at a pained shuffle.

Movement worked the cold stiffness from her limbs and she began walking faster as if trying to shake off and leave behind the depression and hopelessness that had threatened to crush her. She had a purpose this night, reason enough to live.

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. The proverb came, unbidden, to her mind. And along with it came a thought, a feeling, a whisper on the wind. Theudas yet lives. She couldn’t tell where the assurance came from, had no way to prove it as true, and yet she suddenly knew it. Knew it like her own name. She quickened her steps still more.

Where there is life, there is hope.


Purchase A War Within: The Healer via Amazon

Learn more about Suzanna ben Ya’ir:

Birthdate and Birthplace
Suzanna was born a slave in Rome in AD 161. She was descended from Jewish slaves captured in the Judeo-Roman war a hundred years before.

Level of schooling
As a child, she learned healing from her master, a Greek physician, and after being sold upon his death she further developed her natural talent through hands-on experience, nursing her master’s wife and other slaves in the household.

Significant other
She married a fellow Jewish slave, Luke, and they had a son, Theudas. After Theudas fought their master’s son and Luke defended him, both father and son were sold to be gladiators.

Currently residing in...
Luke died in the Coliseum, and Suzanna was transported to Parthia and sold into the harem of the king of Hatra, the Parthian desert fortress.

Job and most important goal
There, with the help of a sympathetic guard, she slips away at night to nurse the poor, hording the few coins she receives in payment in hopes of one day buying passage back to Rome with a caravan.

Secret desire or fantasy, and worst fear or nightmare
Her secret dream is to be reunited with her son, while her greatest fear is that she will die alone and forgotten.

Author Bio
As a kid, Nathan D. Maki delighted in leaping through the door of historical fiction and into the adventure of the ancient world. In his teens, his love for reading birthed a desire to write and bring history alive for others. Nathan has always been fascinated with the monumental power and enduring achievements of the Roman Empire and its asymmetrical clash with Early Christianity. As a Christian, he is inspired by stories of triumphant faith in the face of persecution, and he hopes these stories will inspire others as well.

Follow Nathan via: 

Website | Twitter |

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BOOK REVIEW: Willows on the Windrush by Doris Elaine Fell

If you prefer your romances so steamy that the pages blister your fingers, then read no further. If you enjoy being preached at (which seems to be the norm in inspirational fiction), then keep surfing. Willows on the Windrush performs neither function.
 
Thank God.

Thirty-year-old Sydney Barrington possesses everything: beauty, intelligence, wealth, suitors lined up around the block, and a promising career as CEO of her late father's defense contracting corporation. Yet the father-shaped hole in her heart silently mocks her worldly success.

The unexpected inheritance of Broadshire Manor in England's picturesque Cotswolds district jars Syd from her routine. But something seems decidedly amiss when the executor insists that the manor must be sold to settle the deceased's debts, and that Syd need not trouble herself to travel to England to effect the transaction.

The lawyer may as well have unfurled a scarlet hanky. The indomitable Sydney bulls her way across the Pond to investigate the matter firsthand. She arrives to find the quaint hamlet of Stow-on-the-Woodland, over which Broadshire Manor presides, deceptively quiet. The shady solicitor and his tourism plans for Broadshire drop to the bottom of Syd's priorities as she discovers war orphans, elderly invalids, a convoluted line of succession for the manor and a nest of IRA sympathizers.

To say nothing of the dashing but anguished English Harrier pilot, who must overcome his personal demons before he can even contemplate bestowing his affections on anyone else.

Does "love conquer all" in Willows on the Windrush? Well, not exactly -- and that's exactly why I like this book. Sure, the guy gets the girl. No spoiler there; it wouldn't be a romance otherwise. But their path to happiness lurches through plenty of thorny issues and ambiguities. In that respect, Fell's work comes closer to portraying real life than many romance authors. For that, I enthusiastically applaud her.

From a technical standpoint, I thought some of the flashbacks could have been handled a bit more smoothly, especially since the book set off some -- but not all -- of the flashbacks in italics. Also, I would have preferred a clearer explanation of how Sydney became the designated heiress, since the inheritance doesn't make sense once all the facts come to light. 

However, if your definition of a good read includes intrigue and drama, with well-drawn characters whose faith -- or lack thereof -- drives their actions and decisions without being preachy, then I invite you to spread your picnic blanket under the Willows on the Windrush for a pleasant diversion.

(Originally published in Crescent Blues. Reprinted with permission.)

BOOK REVIEW: Blue Mist on the Danube by Doris Elaine Fell

Blue Mist on the Danube by Doris Elaine Fell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Vienna, Bosnia, Los Angeles.
The past, the present, the future.
Alabama, Prague, London.
One-two-three, one-two-three. The author waltzes between the glamorous and the mundane and the uplifting like the cadence of a favorite Strauss piece, and most of the time just as quickly.

Hardly a straightforward "boy meets girl" type of romance, halfway through the book I found myself wondering why the publisher labeled it a romance at all, let alone an inspirational one. The central plot concerns two middle-aged women, one a world-renowned Czeckoslovakian concert violinist and the other the American wife of a successful pastor, united by the gifted young man they both call "son."

Through a quirk of fate, the young man isn't the only thing they share. Both women harbor devastating secrets. In fact, everyone involved with this unlikely threesome hides something. Clandestine affairs, aborted babies, terminal illness, stolen art masterpieces, undisclosed occupations, unrequited love, guilt, shame, despair -- a veritable transcontinental Peyton Place.

The very human tendency to refuse to come to grips with past mistakes serves as the villain of Blue Mist on the Danube. We tend to be our own worst critics, and forgiveness -- of others as well as self -- comprises this unusual novel's orchestrated refrain. The unique way in which each character vanquishes this intangible villain I leave you to discover.

True to the tradition of 20th century romantic fiction, the final stanza features a happy, if bittersweet ending. But don't forget a comfortable pair of dancing shoes. As Fell whirls you from the present to the past, and flashbacks within flashbacks, to spin back out to the present and beyond, it makes for a blistering read without them.

(Originally published in Crescent Blues. Reprinted with permission.)

View all my reviews