Showing posts with label Jess Lederman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jess Lederman. Show all posts

Monday, January 25, 2021

Write Now Literary Tour with Jess Lederman and Hearts Set Free

 


Write Now Literary is pleased to be organizing a two-week book tour and giveaway for Hearts Set Free by Jess Lederman. The book tour will run January 18-29, 2021.
 

Book Title: Hearts Set Free

Genre: Literary Fiction/ Historical/Christian

 

ISBN-10 : 1098511093

ISBN-13 : 978-1098511098





A graduate with a degree in music from Columbia University, Jess Lederman is an author of Christian-themed fiction who lives with his wife and two young sons in the Pacific Northwest.

He is currently at work on a novel that begins in the last days of the Wild West and ends in Las Vegas in 1955. When Jess is not writing or chasing his young sons around, he can usually be found at the piano playing Chopin nocturnes for his wife, Ling.















Seven Lives Inexorably Intertwined. Over Eighty-Six Years. That Will Bring a Revelation Beyond What Any of Them Could Imagine.

 

The Alaska Territory, 1925. When Yura Noongwook’s husband abandons her and her thirteen-year-old son, she vows to win him back and destroy the woman who stole his heart. They embark on an epic cross-country quest that leads them to the Nevada desert, where they meet a man who has turned into the last thing anyone expected him to become …

 

David Gold. Reno, 1930. A Bible-school dropout known as the Pummelin’ Preacher. His boxing career is fading, just like his faith. But then a former call girl shows up, tells him about the rag-tag congregation she’s part of; how their pastor was murdered. And that the Spirit is moving and David’s destiny is to lead their tiny flock.

 

Las Vegas, 2011. Cable TV star Tim Faber is an atheist bent on proving God is only alive in people’s imaginations. But Joan Reed, his producer, is trying to recapture the faith of her youth. And both of them are driven to unravel a mystery surrounding the Big Bang theory, never dreaming the answer will forever change their lives.

 

To do that, they have to meet with the now 99-year-old Luke Noongwook and David Gold’s grandson, Daniel.

 

The veil is being pulled back, but none of them are prepared for what they’ll find on the other 

side.


Read my review here.


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Chapter One

Luke and Yura: The Alaska Territory, 1925

 

My father deserted my mother and me when I was thirteen years

old. He had become famous that winter on the Great Race of Mercy, one

of the Athabascan mushers who brought diphtheria serum to Nome

and saved ten thousand lives. He’d done the impossible, a blind run in

the howling darkness, crossing the open ice of the Norton Sound, the

temperature falling to sixty below, the sun a distant dream. He was our

hero, our North Star.

 

And then he was gone.

 

He left us, of course, for a woman. A blizzard had hit him at

Unalakleet, a storm so powerful that it travelled four thousand miles,

till at last it reached New York and froze the Hudson River. The woman

lived in just that far-away land, on the wild island of Manhattan, and

her name was Kathleen Byrne. The Hearst papers had been giving the

Great Race front-page headlines; Kathleen was a reporter, lean and

hungry, she’d go to the ends of the earth for a good story, and one day

she got her chance.

 

No one in my hometown of Nenana had seen anything like her,

a slender redhead with emerald eyes, smoking Lucky Strikes and

exhaling expertly through her nostrils, this coolly confident young

woman with fiery hair.

 

She wanted details that would bring the story to life, so Father

brought her to our home to show off his sled dogs. At least, the ones

who’d survived, for three he had raised since they were pups had died

on the trail. Somewhere in the madness of that journey he’d forgotten

to cover their groins with rabbit skins, and they’d perished of frostbite

in the unfathomable cold.

 

I gaped at her stupidly.

 

“Excuse my son,” said my mother. “He has no manners.”



 

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Hearts Set Free epic historical inspirational drama

   

Hearts Set Free
Jess Lederman
 
March, 2019
400  pp
Available in $12.99/$19.99 print, $2.99 ebook, $21.99 audio
Buy on Amazon 
Barnes and Noble 
 
About the book
Seven Lives Inexorably Intertwined. Over Eighty-Six Years.
That Will Bring a Revelation Beyond What Any of Them Could Imagine.

The Alaska Territory, 1925. When Yura Noongwook’s husband abandons her and her thirteen-year-old son, she vows to win him back and destroy the woman who stole his heart. They embark on an epic cross-country quest that leads them to the Nevada desert, where they meet a man who has turned into the last thing anyone expected him to become …

David Gold. Reno, 1930. A Bible-school dropout known as the Pummelin’ Preacher. His boxing career is fading, just like his faith. But then a former call girl shows up, tells him about the rag-tag congregation she’s part of; how their pastor was murdered. And that the Spirit is moving and David’s destiny is to lead their tiny flock.

Las Vegas, 2011. Cable TV star Tim Faber is an atheist bent on proving God is only alive in people’s imaginations. But Joan Reed, his producer, is trying to recapture the faith of her youth. And both of them are driven to unravel a mystery surrounding the Big Bang theory, never dreaming the answer will forever change their lives.
To do that, they have to meet with the now 99-year-old Luke Noongwook and David Gold’s grandson, Daniel.
The veil is being pulled back, but none of them are prepared for what they’ll find on the other side.
 
My review
Hearts Set Free is a cautious mix of a mainstream story invaded by the Holy Spirit. It’s not a tame Christian tale, nor follows the traditional Christian literature ground rules, so if you expect traditional pure inspirational lit, this isn’t it.
 
Author Jess Lederman creates a puzzle of time and characters, seemingly disparate eras and goals, and begins to weave them together, dancing back and forth in time and place. Several storylines emerge: in the 1920s and 30s a First Nation Alaskan husband leaves him family, who some years later, decide to go after him; a young man called to ministry during WWI makes a left turn into the underworld of professional fighting; in the modern era, a pair of lovers in midlife crisis seek an elusive genius’s theorem regarding the universe for their television reality documentary while debunking the God myth, and a Las Vegas pastor searches for redemption. Many pieces of the story set the foundation for the final battle.

Some ways into the story, it becomes heavily nuanced with the gospel message and lengthy biblical exegesis, as all characters in all walks of life are introduced to faith. These are real people who are often trapped in real sin.

The book should be read in larger chunks, or the reader might consider keeping notes of characters and names in significant historical eras, as several of them interact at different times and have very similar names. The chapters jump around through time and among the players until they begin to coalesce as little bits of details begin the reveal the puzzle’s picture.
 
Hearts Set Free is not an easy or light read. Adult language and situations are part of the story. Ultimately, Lederman shares the battle between spiritual realities and the redeeming love only Christ can offer. 

About the author
A graduate with a degree in music from Columbia University, Jess Lederman is an author of Christian-themed fiction who lives with his wife and two young sons in the Pacific Northwest.

He is currently at work on a novel that begins in the last days of the Wild West and ends in Las Vegas in 1955. When Jess is not writing or chasing his young sons around, he can usually be found at the piano playing Chopin nocturnes for his wife, Ling.