Sue Kerman is proud to announce the publication of her first novel Between Heaven and Earth. The book is available at Gefen Publishers in Jerusalem, and at the Adraba Book Store on 5 Ben Maimon St., Jerusalem. . For non-Israelis it can be obtained at AMAZON. Between Heaven and Earth is a novel about mid-nineteenth century Jerusalem and is peopled with several of the well-known figures of the time including James Finn, the British Consul to Palestine between 1846 and 1863, his wife, Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn, a writer and an important Jerusalem personality in her own right, the Reverend Conrad Schick, a Protestant missionary and a major figure in the study of Jerusalem's architecture and archaeology, as well as the importer to Palestine of 19th century European building ideas,
Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn
Consul James Finn
Reverend Conrad Schick
the infamous Wilhelm Moses Shapira, a Jerusalem antiquities dealer and purveyor of fake Biblical artifacts, and the well-known British Pre-Raphaelite painter, William Holman-Hunt.
The main character, however, is a fictional woman named Zara Rubens, a Russian-born widow who spent her adult life in New York City and who decides after the death of her husband to take a trip to Jerusalem to realize a childhood dream. Within a short time of her arrival she becomes involved with the foreign community in the city and begins sending articles about life there under a pseudonym to the newly opened New York Times. Her personal life becomes dangerously complicated as a result of her journalistic endeavors.
Zara’s story is told through Rebecca Silver, a descendant of Zara and a New York museum curator, who inherits a number of boxes of Zara’s articles, letters and photographs. Rebecca comes to Jerusalem and decides to do an exhibit based on Zara’s life.
Click for an excerpt from Between Heaven and Earth
David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. (1 Chronicles 21:16)
