"Israelite twins with healing gifts feature in Sharon Reiss Bakers suspenseful historical novel Last Days in Moav, about family duty and finding the courage to love.
Decades after his ancestors exodus from Egypt, Netanel dies in a desert flood. Thereafter, he watches over his siblings Milcah and Gidon through an otherworldly veil. In a mysterious act involving golden light, he aids the twins when they ask for help to heal a goat. Later, the twins offer healings from beyond that invoke God, employing folk herbal remedies. Nobody knows whether their abilities are unholy magic or genuine blessings. Gidons knack for predicting catastrophic weather causes further unrest.
The alternating perspectives result in tension. The twins navigate tribal differences; their enthusiastic brother Avidan fills in key details; and Netanel addresses his future audiencepeople who send images across oceans, shoot into space, and witness celestial explosionswith oracular urgency, expressing his yearning interventions in his siblings lives. His fabulistic narration is a tantalizing complement to the notion that both the living and the dead have vital stories to tell.
The crisp, straightforward prose covers the death of Moses and the tribes anticipated crossing into a promised land alongside the twins desires for their own marriages, despite fears that their strange vocations make them unmarriageable. Their community is fleshed out in terms of their shared living spaces and chores, and in terms of how they respond to the twins healing work, with their reactions ranging from tacit approval to resentment. When a feud threatens Milcah with an unwanted betrothal, it dials up the books weighty considerations of obligation and injustice.
In Last Days in Moav, a spiritual novel set in biblical times, preternatural siblings mature through instances of strife and reconciliation."
Foreword Reviews
"Drama unfolds in the Israelite Encampment in the Moav desert after the biblical exodus from enslavement in Egypt.
Sixteen-year-old twins Milcah and Gidon grapple with their precarious status in the Encampment, both distrusted yet needed for their mystical healing capabilities. Add in Gidons clubfoot and Milcahs headstrong personality, and the siblings expect to remain unmarrieduntil the bully Enan and his menacing father attempt to blackmail Milcah into a union. Would the Council regard the siblings gifts as healing or magic or trickery? Milcah, meanwhile, has met Mishael, a teen from a reviled tribe, who offers the possibility of a marriage based on mutual affection, while Gidon pines after childhood friend Rahel. A healing mission through the desert draws the twins, their love interests, and their younger brother, Avidan, into an overnight quest that will shape their futures. Bakers plucky twins are flawed and sympathetic protagonists. The Encampment is an intriguing setting, imbued with restlessness as the tribes prepare to cross the River Jordan into the place El had promised us. The biblical trappings comfortably encompass the mystical elements, such as Gidons religious healing practices and the voice of Netanel, the twins deceased older brother, who witnesses their life events as a spirit. Netanel declares that the Israelites must build a new society in the Land that insists on justice for victims and accused.
A well-characterized coming-of-age story in an epically unusual setting.
Kirkus Reviews
"I absolutely adored Sharon Reiss Bakers gripping, enchanting new book, Last Days in Moav. The story transported me back to Biblical days, when mystical desert winds swirled and ancient tribes clashed. Through riveting historical detail and beautifully rendered narrative voices, Last Days in Moav explores the strength and tenacity of a family facing the fight of their lives. I couldnt put it down."
Stacy Nockowitz, author of The Prince of Steel Pier, a National Jewish Book Award Winner
A ghost story, a love story, and a history lesson, Last Days in Moav brings to life a fascinating moment of biblical lore. Deeply researched and carefully plotted, Sharon Reiss Baker seamlessly weaves in biblical history with compelling characters that will transport readers to life at the edge of the Land.
Tammar Stein, author of The Six-Day Hero and The Treasure of Tel Maresha
