While the fate of the world rested on Noah's shoulders, the survival of the human race rested on hers.

From the award-winning author of Sinners and the Sea comes a breathtaking new look into the timeless tale of Queen Esther, “a riveting tale of courage” (New York Times bestselling author Tosca Lee). A glittering Persian king has a vast empire that reaches farther than where the sun meets the horizon. He is bathed in riches and commands a frightening military force. He possesses power beyond any other mortal man and rules his kingdom as a god. Anything he desires, he has. Any woman he wants, he possesses. Thousands of them. Young virgins from all across his many lands. A Jewish girl is ripped from her hut by the king’s brutish warriors and forced to march across blistering, scorched earth to the capital city. Trapped for months in the splendid cage of the king’s palace, she must avoid the ire of the king’s concubines and eunuchs all while preparing for her one night with the king. Soon the fated night arrives, and she does everything in her power to captivate the king and become his queen. But wearing the crown brings with it a new set of dangers. When a ruthless man plies the king’s ear with whispers of genocide, it is up to the young queen to prevent the extermination of the Jews. She must find the strength within to violate the king’s law, risk her life, and save her people. This is a story of finding hidden depths of courage within one’s self. Of risking it all to stand up for what is right. This is the story of Queen Esther.

Christians know that God loves them, but can easily feel that he is perpetually disappointed and frustrated, maybe even close to giving up on them. As a result, they focus a lot—and rightly so—on what Jesus has done to appease God’s wrath for sin. But how does Jesus Christ actually feel about his people amid all their sins and failures? This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as “gentle and lowly in heart,” longing for his people to find rest in him. The gospel flows from God’s deepest heart for his people, a heart of tender love for the sinful and suffering. These chapters take readers into the depths of Christ’s very heart for sinners, diving deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners comforts and sustains readers in their up-and-down lives.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes a fascinating book about religion in America, about the passions, triumphs, and failures of the life of faith, revealing stories of grace and despair, sexual scandal and attempted murder. • "Insightful...vivid...beautifully rendered stories." —Chicago Tribune Lawrence Wright's Saints and Sinners are Jimmy Swaggart, who preached a hellfire gospel with rock 'n' roll abandon before he was caught with a, prostitute in a seedy motel; Anton LaVey, the kitsch-loving, gleefully fraudulent founder of the First Church of Satan; Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whose litigious atheism sometimes resembled a brand of faith; Matthew Fox, the Dominican priest who has aroused the fury of the Vatican for dismissing the doctrine of original sin and denouncing the church as a dysfunctional family; Walker Railey, the rising star of Dallas's Methodist church, who, at the pinnacle of his success, was suspected of attempting to murder his wife; and Will Campbell, the eccentric liberal Southern Baptist preacher whose challenges to established ways of thinking have made him a legend in his own time.

I hate the Harlequin boys. Fox, JJ, Chase and Maverick. The four names tattooed onto my heart more permanently than the ink on my skin. Once upon a time, they broke my heart, stole my life and sent me away from everything I'd ever known. But they don't just live in this town anymore, they rule it. And the view here may be beautiful, but the sun, sea and sand hide dark secrets. The gangs. The lies. The violence. It all lurks beneath a veil so thin that once you've seen through it, you can never close your eyes to the truth again. But I don't plan on closing my eyes. I have four devils set in my sights. And this dead girl no longer has anything to lose.

Seeking redemption for the secret murder of her preacher thirty years earlier, a woman on the cusp of realizing her dreams is destroyed when Hurricane Katrina's wrath unleashes the preacher's car from its watery grave and reopens the mystery of his disappearance.The setting is Alabama, summer of 1969. Integration. Racial and Social unrest and Sexual awakenings. It is the story of Kitty Bankhead, 16, caught in an unending struggle with her innate, desperate faith. She has her heart set on leaving behind her childhood of genteel poverty and becoming a Broadway actress, following in the footsteps of her famous cousin, Tallulah. Her plans are derailed when she is brutally raped by her Preacher, Glen Duvall – who has a mysterious and sinister background, and murders him in his secret lair. With the help of her best friend, they bury his body and push his car into the murky waters of the Black Warrior River.Thirty years later, Hurricane Katrina stirs up every creek and river in Alabama and the aqua blue Cadillac of Glen Duvall surfaces, summoning Kitty to return home to face questions from a newly appointed prosecutor set on solving the thirty year old mystery of the preacher's disappearance. The secrets lie in what the river has unearthed, for the river keeps what it needs and the rest is washed to the sea.SINNER FROM THE SOUTH is more than a novel; it is a journey for every soul who searches for redemption.________________________________"When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business. " Flannery O'ConnorAlabama Jane Brown was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She has lived in Atlanta, Herrenberg, Germany, Nashville/Franklin, Tennessee and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. She received her BA from Judson College for Women, and studied fiction writing with Barry Hannah at The University of Alabama while pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing. She attended the Sewanee Writers Conference and the Algonkian Writers Conference. The late Barry Hannah called Ms. Brown's writing, “a mixture of Flannery O'Connor meeting Erica Jong for a shoot out at the O. K. Corral.” Ms. Brown resides in Alabama with her husband in a historic log cabin with a menagerie of ghosts and cats. Ms. Brown has published on webdelsol under “New Voices” and is at work on her third novel, The Ghost Dancer's Shirt.

While the fate of the world rested on Noah's shoulders, the survival of the human race rested on hers.