“A Voice in the Wind” is a wonderfully-written book based in the year 70 A.D. There are three main characters: fifteen-year-old Jewess Hadassah, twenty-year-old Roman Marcus, and eighteen-year-old German Atretes, whose lives weave throughout one another’s in the course of the novel.
The focal event is the fall of Jerusalem, where the story opens up. Hadassah is introduced in the first chapter, which describes the three days leading up to the Roman siege of her city. Hadassah’s family is originally from Galilee, and her native tongue is Aramaic, but they travel often because her father works as a missionary. Hadassah’s father, who had been raised from the dead by Jesus when he was a young boy, died in a riot shortly after he had moved his family to Jerusalem. Three days before the siege, Hadassah’s mother perished of starvation, and her older brother Caleb was killed by a Roman soldier who had invaded their home during the siege. Hadassah and her younger sister Leah were taken captive and herded to be sold in Rome, but Leah also died of starvation during their first night of their captivity. Hadassah, now and orphan and entirely alone, was sold to a family in Rome.
The second chapter revolves around Atretes, a German warrior whose father leads a barbaric forest tribe. During the fall of Jerusalem, Atretes and his father’s tribe are also facing off against Romans, and it ends similarly for him. His father is killed in the battle, and eighteen-year-old Atretes is captured by the Romans and shipped to Rome to be trained as a gladiator.
The focus of the third chapter is Roman-blooded Marcus Valerian, who often argues with his father about his future. One day, Marcus returns home to find that his mother has bought his fourteen-year-old sister Julia a slave named Hadassah. Julia is outraged at first, because not only is Hadassah Jewish (a race despised by the Romans), but she isn’t particularly attractive either. However, over a period of time Hadassah seems to win over Julia and the entire Valerian family with her soft, broken Latin and her stories and songs from the Bible. Marcus, of course, ends up falling in love with Hadassah. And Julia, after seeing him fight as a gladiator in the Roman games, begins to fall in love with Atretes.
I loved this book to pieces. It was beautifully-written and had my attention the whole way through. I didn’t skip a single page, like I normally would if the pace of a novel is too slow. The characters are believable and multi-faceted; you could love the bad guys as much as you could the good ones! There are some dramatic parts that wouldn’t be appropriate for the very young or faint of heart, but I would recommend it to anyone 15+ who likes an exciting story. I can’t wait to read the sequel.