Sunday, August 18, 2019

About the Book

Book: Warriors with Holy Hands

Author: Peter Toeg

Genre: Christian Suspense

Release Date: February 3, 2017

Warriors With Holy Hands is the story of a young woman who finds herself lost in time and whose life over a period of three years is spiraling downward. Ruth Falk is stricken with an inexplicable illness and then orphaned. With only a distant relative in her life now, Ruth faces a life of debilitating pain and infirmity. She determines to look to the past for answers she believes her bloodline may reveal.

Searching through diaries and records, Ruth discovers blood relatives and others who lived far away over the course of a century. We follow their lives across three generations culminating in the revelation of indisputable connections that are created—words and actions with lasting results.

Ruth learns that a curse spoken by one ancestor may have had a devastating domino effect, one whose beginning also engaged her prayer-warrior grandmother in a pitched spiritual battle to break. A challenged believer herself, Ruth grows in the faith of her predecessors who faced ominous situations.

The rich symbolism of Judaism provides a backdrop for the saga with traditions and meaning sprinkled throughout the story.

When she faces increasing paralysis, Ruth and a birth friend in the faith journey to the Southern Highlands of Tennessee where it all began. Here in the span of seven days—over ten months—all that has unraveled in recent years comes together. Life as she knows it will never be the same.

God reveals himself to Ruth and others in remarkable ways along a tortuous path that comes full circle.

Warriors is a mystery that is finally, stunningly, revealed as serendipitous fruit from the branches of a family tree. It is a story of encouragement and life that empowers those who seek God and believe.

About the Author

Peter Toeg was a technical writer for over twenty years and a trained journalist who taught communication and media writing for fifteen years at a small Midwestern university. A believer for thirty years, he has roots that extend both to Iraq and Judaism, two themes in Warriors.

He writes full-time now: mostly memoir and short stories with several published. Writing is his avocation.

More from Peter

I’ve always been fascinated with connections, whether family or circumstances. As a memoirist, I have been granted a wonderful perspective on my life filled with connections. Warriors With Holy Hands is a family saga in that vein. Exploring our roots and bloodline. In Warriors, a young woman receives a wonderful gift from the grandmother she never knew and learns the power of prayer.

Ruth Falk, the main character faces two problems: an illness that is robbing her of her mobility and, as an orphan, little knowledge of her past. She wonders whether the two are connected: her background and her illness. So begins her amazing search. In her debilitating condition, time is not on her side.

As often happens in a family, we discover more than we expect. I did forty years after being orphaned myself. I learned that my father rescued his own sister and mother, spiriting them to safety with him when he emigrated from a hostile land to the United States. The grand deception was revealed in documents I’d tucked away. I’d never been told the story.

Ruth Falk also crosses paths with a man on a spiritual journey and another mysterious soldier-warrior, who is mentally gifted—and also her rescuer.

Spanning one hundred years and populated by a dozen remarkable people and a few miscreants, Warriors With Holy Hands is a mystery and adventure with wonders and rich spiritual truths. And maybe a miracle or two. It was quite a trip for me in the writing as I trust it will be for my readers.

Peter Toeg

Excerpt from Warriors:

“Tell me why you’re here, Jacob,” I said through the chorus. We sat at angles to each other in wicker chairs, the vantage of direct face-to-face lost. A candle on a small table before us illuminated considerably more than our plastic glasses and now-soggy paper plates.

“Everybody has to be somewhere, sis.” A quick response.

I pressed. “What are you looking for here? I have reasons—that you’ve hammered me with. What about your family? Are you taking the genealogy route?”

Jacob finished his wine. A loud swallow. I caught him looking at his stump, the prosthetic he’d removed before we came out. He’d rarely been this quiet in my presence this long, the flight excepted. Then he placed the drained glass down, stood, and, with his hand, moved the table to his left, pulled his chair more directly opposing me, and sat down. Military posture, his arms on the chair arms. He looked kindly at me with wine-softened eyes.

“I’m here to help you, Ruthie.” He looked into the night and back at me. “I confess I do have some unfinished business. You’re smart enough to know that—and what it is.” A sad smile formed, genuine emotion breaking out.

I saw hurt in his eyes brewing deep down. “Your father. You have a bridge to cross.” I touched his hand with mine and withdrew it after a moment. “Over a river.”

Jacob looked away longer now, and then back, but he said nothing.

“I can carry you, Jacob,” I said confidently. “You’re not alone.”

Jacob looked at me, a little surprised and pleased at the same time, his eyes damp. “We are kin, are we not? Covenant. A covenant of three.”

I nodded, looked at his stump and then down at my legs. I lifted up my plastic glass and looked at Jacob through its prism with a squint.

“Your father’s spirit is not at the river, but God is… Look for Him and you’ll find your father.”

He nodded. “As much as we think what happens is about us, it’s not, is it?”

I shook my head.

I had momentarily seen Jacob’s face distorted through the glass by the candlelight. Now, the glass removed, his face was almost radiant. “It is said the mystic knows God by contact of spirit with spirit; cor ad cor loquitur. He has the immediate vision…he hears the still, small voice speaking clearly to him in the silence of his soul.”

“And what is the translation?” Jacob perked.

I felt at rest in the moment after a day on the road had awakened nerve pain in my limbs. Gone now. “It means ‘heart speaks to heart.’ Some Catholic theologian. Some say that the origins of the heart speaking are in music—a crystal voice, the sounds of the night, the call of a bird—rushing water.” I waved my hand in a sweeping motion at the darkness before us that was filled with sound.

Jacob nodded then returned to his usual playful self. “So, you’re going to carry me, eh kid?”

“We all need to be carried.” (p. 123)

The story centers around a young woman named Ruth. She has a mysterious illness that baffles the VA hospital. After being injured in the field she must suffers from a concussion. It is hard to explain her paralysis and other symptoms that are not related to a head injury. I could sense her need to find out what is going on with her. There is nothing worse than going to the doctor and they have no explanation as to why you are experiencing pains, eye problems, etc.

Ruth is determined that maybe her family history will help give clues to her illness. This is where I became very confused. I usually love time slip stories. They take us back in time as we learn details of a family and it ties in together . There were too many characters for me to be able to keep up with. I was lost at times and wanted to scream. Going back to more than one time period overwhelmed me. There is definitely a big mystery surrounding Ruth's family and the more she dug, the more she found skeletons in the closet.

Thomas was a very big part of the story and I wanted someone to protect him. He was different from the other kids and was bullied constantly. At one point in the story boys trap him alone with his dog. The graphic nature of this scene made me angry and sad. I wish the author would have found another way to express the boys' anger toward Thomas without the violence they did on the dog. In that moment we see Thomas laying hands on his dog as if to heal him. I won't tell you what happened, but it began to open secrets long buried in the family.

There was quite a bit of violence in the family during the early days which involved the KKK. I will never understand how a person can murder another human being because of their color. The author does bring to light the different eras and how trouble seemed to follow Ruth's ancestors.

Ruth will not give up until she finds answers that are hidden in diaries that are part of her kin. Her continue deterioration was making it harder for her to track down relatives and get answers that she desperately need to get help from doctors. We travel to different eras where a puzzle piece starts to open the mystery that could save Ruth's life. It is filled with spiritual undertones that at times I wasn't sure of. I liked parts of the book, but most of it was just too confusing and seemed to take to long to fit the puzzle pieces together.

I will say that I was intrigued by the genealogical aspect of the story. I have done extensive research on my family history and have many secrets that had been buried for years. I was shocked at how my parents were able to hold on to the biggest secrets of their lives until they died. While my brother and I researched, we found a shocking discovery. Ruth will have many details she will have to sort through as she searches for a cure for her illness. Will her ancestors hold the answer she needs?

I received a copy of this book from Celebrate Lit. The review is my own opinion.

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