Book Notes: Harvest of Gold by Tessa Afshar

The newest biblical romance from Tessa Afshar, Harvest of Gold (River North, 2013), releases Monday, July 1. The follow up to the story of Sarah and Darius, first introduced in Harvest of Rubies (a finalist for the 2013 ECPA Fiction Book Award) finds the couple on their way with Nehemiah t rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

From the publisher:
The scribe Sarah married Darius, and at times she feels as if she has married the Persian aristocracy, too. There is another point she did not count on in her marriage-Sarah has grown to love her husband. Sarah has wealth, property, honor, and power, but her husband's love still seems unattainable.

Although his mother was an Israelite, Darius remains skeptical that his Jewish wife is the right choice for him, particularly when she conspires with her cousin Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Ordered to assist in the effort, the couple begins a journey to the homeland of his mother's people. Will the road filled with danger, conflict, and surprising memories, help Darius to see the hand of God at work in his life-and even in his marriage?

A hidden message, treachery, opposition, and a God-given success, will lead to an unlikely bounty.

The book will be launched Monday evening at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT, where Mark Twain lived and wrote. It's a writing center in the state, hosting many bestselling authors (Stephen King will speak at an event to benefit the house and museum in July), but this is the first book launch ever hosted there.

For a feature article on the launch, which appeared in Thursday's Manchester Journal-Inquirer, click here.

To visit the author's blog, visit www.tessafshar.com, where you can read a sample chapter.

To buy the book:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Gold-Tessa-Afshar/dp/0802405592/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372538873&sr=8-1&keywords=harvest+of+gold

Barnes & Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/harvest-of-gold-tessa-afshar/1114140400?ean=9780802405593

Christian Book Distributors:
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=405590&item_code=WW&netp_id=1117654&event=ESRCG&view=details

About the author:

Tessa Afshar was voted “New Author of the Year” by the Family Fiction sponsored Reader’s Choice Awards 2011 for her novel Pearl in the Sand. Her book, Harvest of Rubies was nominated for the 2013 ECPA Book Award (formerly known as the Gold Medallion) in the fiction category, received the 2012 Grace Award for Women’s Fiction and was selected as one of four “notable” novels by World Magazine.

 

Afshar was born in Iran to a nominally Muslim family, and lived there for the first 14 years of her life. She moved to England where she survived boarding school for girls and fell in love with the works of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, before moving to the United States permanently. She holds an MDiv degree from Yale University where she served as co-chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School. She has spent the last 14 years in full-time Christian service in New England.