Ester's Child

In Ester s Child (Windsor-Brooke Books September 2001 $24.95), Jean Sasson shows that she is a brilliant storyteller. Painted on a canvas as sweeping as its subject matter, Ester s Child is authentic as history and convincing as fiction. Both plot and character driven, Ester s Child is a passionate book with several love stories set amid the twentieth century s most dramatic historical events, revealing layers and varieties of hate seldom seen in popular fiction.The Prologue of Ester s Child opens on January 7, 1948. The declaration of the new State of Israel is only 4 months away and Jewish and Arab forces are fighting fiercely in Palestine over possession of an ancient land they are prepared to die for. On this day, an event occurs which irreversibly alters the lives of three families forever.Part I of this compelling drama begins in Paris during the summer of 1938. The sternly religious Stein family of Warsaw, Poland are visiting Polish family members who now live in Paris. During the visit, Ester Stein, an innocent and beautiful young woman meets Joseph Gale. Joseph is the handsome and sophisticated son of Benjamin and Natalie Gale, a prosperous Jewish family who have rejected their Jewish faith and successfully merged into French society.Part II of Ester s Child opens in 1948 Palestine. Jews and Arabs are battling for a small strip of dusty land both claim as their own. Jews who survived the death camps are tenacious warriors, and in battle after battle, Jews are defeating Arabs. Soon after George Antoun suffers the unbearable loss of his three siblings in the Jaffa Gate bombing, George and his wife, Mary, along with their young son, Demetrius, and George s father, Mitri, are forced to leave Palestine and the only home they have ever known. They escape across the border into Lebanon believing that they will return in one week. At war s end, they are horrified to discover that they are not allowed to return to their home in Haifa. They will be forced to live out their lives as impoverished Palestinian refugees.Part III of Ester s Child is set in Jerusalem, where Joseph and Ester Gale learn that both children are to marry what many call inappropriate" partners for Israeli Jews. Michel Gale and Christine Kleist are engaged as well as Jordan Gale and Demetrius Antoun.By tethering the lives of these three families, all tossed into the maelstrom of war s terrors, JEAN SASSON proclaims the tenderness of great love and exposes the consuming passions of war. But in the end, the force of love overturns the claims of love and blood.JEAN SASSON is the New York Times Bestselling author of Princess. In her Princess Trilogy, the author helped create a new genre that stirred widespread interest in the human condition and in the plight of women in the Arab world. The books were non-fiction but they flowed as smoothly as page-turning fiction, winning the author a vast following of readers. The three books about Princess Sultana sold over 7 million copies worldwide.About the AuthorBorn in the small southern town of Louisville, Alabama, Jean Sasson began a lifetime of travel in 1978 that has taken her to 55 countries in 22 years. Her first bestseller, The Rape of Kuwait was published in 1991 and quickly climbed to #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Following this success, her three books on Princess Sultana became raging successes, selling over 7 million copies worldwide. A devoted reader of world history, Jean s debut novel, ESTER S CHILD combines historical accuracy with exhilarating adventure.