ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Don Hoesel is a Web site designer for a Medicare carrier in Nashville, TN. He has a BA in Mass Communication from Taylor University and has published short fiction in Relief Journal. He was born and raised in Buffalo, NY but lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee, with his wife and two children. Serpent of Moses is his fourth novel.
Moses built and lifted up the brass serpent, healing the afflicted Israelites of snakebites.King Hezekiah called the serpent Nehushtan. Long thought destroyed, it's been buried for millennia, secreted under the region's shifting sands.
Now the Israeli government wants it back and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Yet they're not the only ones who covet the Nehushtan.
Archaeologist Jack Hawthorne travels to Libya intent on recovering the sacred object, but one does not cross the Mossad and expect to walk away without a fight. Jack and his friends must find the priceless "snake of brass upon a pole" before those who are also hunting it find them...and silence them forever.
If you would like to read the first chapter of Serpent of Moses, go HERE.
BOOK REVIEW
Note: This review is by a guest reviewer... my husband, Addison! Please be kind; it's his first review! :)
Serpent of Moses is a good book and I had a fun time reading it. When I first read the description of the book, and its main character, the intrepid archaeologist Jack Hawthorne, I immediately thought of other famous adventurers like Indiana Jones and (for the video game savvy) Nathan Drake. While Jack Hawthorne's adventure through northern Africa in this book may not meet the bar set by those two adventurers, it did provide me with a joyful, fun, easy read.
I went into this book blind, not knowing that there is a preceding book which recounts an earlier adventure of Mr. Hawthorne's. Having done so, and now after finishing the book, I can say that Don Hoesel, the author, does an excellent job of allowing new-comers to jump right into the story. All the characters are well-developed within this single tale, and whenever something comes up that requires knowledge of Jack's previous escapades, the author fills you in with just enough details to clear up any confusion, and yet each reference to Jack's earlier adventure left me wanting to go back and read that story as well. It really is very well done.
The adventure itself is well thought out and has many moving parts. One of things I most enjoyed was how the narrative continually jumps between the many players in the story. Seeing the separate paths of all the characters involved and how all those paths wove in and out and eventually came together in the end was quite enjoyable.
While the subject of the book, the Nehushtan or Serpent of Moses, has biblical roots, the story itself only a few times touches on matters of faith. I was expecting and looking forward to Jack Hawthorne's spiritual growth being a central theme but was left wanting in that respect.
Overall Serpent of Moses was a fun, enjoyable and easy read. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a quick globe-trotting adventure - it would be a great beach book!
This book is a clean read. Although there are a few occasional instances of descriptive violence (e.g. a man using a knife to "open the throat" of another man) none of it was gratuitous or overly graphic in my opinion.
I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
I want to thank Don Hoesel, Bethany House Publishers, and the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for the complimentary copy of this book for review. I was not required to write a positive review.The opinions I express in this review are my own. This is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s CFR 16, Part 255.
Not bad for a first review! I'm going to have to add this book to my TBR list.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Brittany! I'll let Addison know : ) It does sound like a great book, doesn't it! Thanks so much for the nice comment and for stopping by!
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