Rebecca, the storyteller, flees the Roman destruction of Jerusalem with a daughter and an infant by her side. In servitude to two Jewish families, along their wilderness flight they happen upon sorrows and suspicions, and thieves and Romans. Across these days, Rebecca also harbors a secret of her own; she not only hails from Nazareth, but is of the family of Mary, who had named her firstborn, Jesus. And as a child, Rebecca saw Him. And the memory of Him is spreading. > READ MORE

In 1890s Pennsylvania, Clara Waltz is returning home one winter morning from visiting ailing Mrs. Snyder. She encounters a drunken man who, along with four others, had gang-raped her eleven years prior. Terrified, she flees, hiding in a partially fallen tree. From her hiding place she sees another man, a ragged stranger, appear from the river’s frozen edge. A struggle ensues. When all has quieted, Clara crawls out to find the rapist and his horse have been killed. The stranger is gone. > READ MORE

Much scarred orphan, Truman Kramer, having joined the Peace Corps, is assigned to a small Malaysian community, serving an assemblage of all-but-forgotten handicapped children. Truman, never having kissed a girl, becomes involved with an unloved, married woman; a shopkeeper’s wife craving anything of her own. As his service wanes, mired in earnestness and deceit, his lover’s husband discovers his wife’s affair. Torn with remorse, young Truman acts, plumbing the depths of love, and our need to attach ourselves to other human beings. > READ MORE