BookMovement is participating in a research project that offers readers a chance to review a work of fiction-before it is published. The independent research firm hopes to get objective opinions of the novel and learn if there might be an alternative to the traditional book acquisition process – that is see if consumers might like it first! If you are interested, look over the criteria below to see if you qualify. If you do, click on the enter to win button. The first 25 respondents who meet the criteria below will be study participants. Participants will be contacted by Brock Associates, an independent research firm, and asked to complete an opinion survey once they have read the manuscript. Criteria: --Have you read at least 10 works of fiction in the last two years? --Read at least five works of literary fiction in the last two years? --Do you like Southern fiction and/or Historical Fiction? --Do you have time to read a 350 page manuscript in one month? --Do you have an email address & regular access to the Internet? --Will you email back an opinion survey after reading the manuscript? --Can you CANDIDLY answer questions about the manuscript? --Based on survey questions, can you ensure the manuscript was read? Book Description: Jonah, whose mother disappeared mysteriously after his birth, is raised by his father on their plantation on the Alabama frontier during the early 1800's. To escape from his cold and overbearing father, Jonah seeks companionship and warmth in the community of slaves. Later in life, Jonah marries Eloise, the daughter of an abolitionist minister. When his father dies, he becomes the troubled and disturbed heir to the plantation. After discovering that his father purchased an island off the coast of Florida, Jonah, seeking renewal in his life and family, travels there with his wife, their two children, and five of what he believes are his most trustworthy slaves - some of whom are endeared to him from childhood. One of the slaves brought along is Shaka who, unbeknownst to Jonah, has developed into a sort of savior amongst his people. Through his preaching and rituals, Shaka inspires the other slaves to worship the plethora of strange and other-worldly birds that inhabit the island, although Eloise tries in vain to convert them back to Christianity. At dawn one day, the wings of a bird hung upon a staff appear mysteriously on the island. Jonah and Shaka instantly come into conflict, violently at first, before settling into a stalemate. Late one night in the midst of a storm, the bearer of the wings returns to reclaim the island, shattering the expectations of everyone, leading both Jonah and Shaka towards greater freedom and resolution.

Months later, in the Autumn, Eloise was on the island with Jonah, strolling along the beach while their children were playing in the dunes. She watched anxiously as the last sign of civilization, the ship, vanished onto the horizon, obliterated from sight both by distance and the approaching darkness.

“We’re alone now,” she said.

“For one month,” said Jonah, “until another ship returns.”

Eloise glanced towards the center of the island where all five slaves were congregated around the only tree on the island—their forms even darker now in the remnants of light.

“You trust them?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Shaka and Jake—all of them.”

“Of course. They were chosen because of their trustworthiness.”

Eloise remembered that night when she saw Shaka in the hollow, standing at the pulpit while cutting that bird from its bindings, some prophetic but wild and animalistic look on his face, as he claimed: “Witness the African Jesus.” Months later, her father informed her that Shaka had been converted into a reliable and zealous preacher of the Word.

But still she felt afraid of him. She also felt untethered like the chord that connected her to the rest of her life was unraveling and, finally, severing, leaving her lost and disoriented, feeling too vulnerable before the incessant grinding and droning of the elements.

Not having time before darkness to establish their camp, Eloise and Jonah retrieved some quilts and pillows from one of the crates left on the beach below. As the round and unblemished moon rose above the mainland seen in the distance, she called her children over and, not even bothering to change their clothes, they all nestled into one of the troughs of the dunes, swaddled in blankets, her children on one side of her, her husband on the other, sheltered from the wind in a sort of white, moon-stained bowl.

Her children fell quickly to sleep. But she stayed awake, gazing into the heavens above: the sky was starless and clear while the moon, which she could not see anymore, was penetrating its light into the darkness. Crickets chirped low and amiably above the churning of surf. To her surprise Jonah gently grabbed her hand and, when she turned on her side, he cuddled next to her, holding her.

“This is Eden,” he whispered to her, “like I said.”

She was silent. For once her fear subsided. She could feel the heaving of Jonah’s lungs next to her and, when her breathing fell into rhythm with his, she sensed that the island itself was breathing as though alive and sensed, too, that the trough was the gentle and beatific palm of God, holding them gently above the water.

“Maybe you’re right, Jonah,” she said. “Maybe this is Eden.”

Maybe God has at last, she thought to herself, brought her broken and wounded family to this island to find peace and wholeness.

Soon Jonah turned onto his back, pulling his arms away from her. Again she faced upwards, watching the interplay of silver and shadow on the crest of the dune. She could hear him breathing now, not smoothly as before but almost snoring, taking long, laborious breaths as though he was working too hard to simply live. As many times before she sensed about him what she could not explain: some kind of sadness, not ordinary grief, but something so powerful and overwhelming that it threatened to destroy him and their family. As her fear returned she imagined the palm of God slowly closing around them, squeezing and lowering them into the seawater below, holding them there, as they struggled to rise again to the surface before they drowned.

God is merciful and Christ was everywhere, including that wilderness of water, she reminded herself, while fading into sleep, cuddling closer to her children but away from her husband. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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