They Shall See God
by Athol Dickson
Two best friends in the rosy-cheeked bloom of childhood skip through life sharing deep secrets, innocent dreams and little girl giggles until they are thrust head-long into a generations-old hatred they are too young to know exists. They are torn from each other's lives just when they need one another the most. When tragedy reunites them years later, the two women, now virtual strangers, discover the reason their parents tore them apart.
And now the opinions, beliefs, and biases that caused their parents' heart-wrenching decision have become their own.
Athol Dickson surprised me with They Shall See God. His previous novels, though set in the real world, have held a somehow “mystical” aura for me. However, in his newest novel, They Shall See God, what impacted me was reality of what I was reading. I had no idea that, in today's America – a nation founded on religious freedom -- some Christians have such intense prejudice against the Jewish nation, or that some Jews despise to the core the very thought of Christianity.
This novel is packed with action, suspense, and nail-biting angst. It's also full of truth--as viewed through a prism of tradition, religion, and culture. Despite the fact that I really didn't like either character, I kept rooting for both. I wanted them to see the truth the way I know it.
And that, I think, might be the point. All of us see God through prisms, or at the most, a dark glass.
They Shall See God is a must read in this day and age of our nation's rising fear of an “infidel” enemy attacking from without. The enemy we battle can strike from within our very hearts.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Catrina Bradley
"God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes." Psalm 18:24 (The Message)
Diclaimer: I was provided with a free a Kindle download of They Shall See God in exchange for my honest review.
