Beyond the Crescent Sky (The Balkan Legends, # 2)
By: AL Sowards
Publication: January 7, 2025 by Shadow Mountain
368 pages
Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction, Christian
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss (Thank you!!)
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Goodreads description--Helena is a healer. Ivan is her prisoner. Caught in the crossfire of war, they must choose: loyalty, or love.The Balkans, 1383
A sudden conflict between Serbs and Greeks has forced Ivan to join his brother and fight with the Serbian army. On the battlefield, Ivan is wounded and captured by the hostile Greeks, becoming a hostage in a deadly bid for power.
Helena, a Greek midwife, is tasked to care for Ivan, a request that will not only test her healing abilities but also her loyalty. Though war has made her reluctant patient an enemy, she can’t help but forge a connection with him, yet falling in love with him could turn her world upside down and brand her a traitor.
As the Ottoman Empire extends its grip into the Balkans, events beyond their control force Ivan and Helena to choose between loyalty to their families and people or following the longings of their hearts.
Award-winning historical novelist A. L. Sowards creates an engaging world of overlords and spies, rebellions and battlefields, and forbidden love.
Ivan was easily a favorite secondary character from Beneath a Crescent Shadow. Then he was a young boy afflicted with a strange illness that regularly required him to be abed for periods. I think I remember breathing difficulties. I'm not sure what his illness would have been diagnosed as. Now he is a grown young man on the verge of his last summer with his older brother, Kostya, before moving to his grandfather's village to learn the role of chief basically. (Other terminology is used, but in case you're unfamiliar with it, I am trying to use terms that would easily translate into common understanding.)
Ivan and Danillo, his cousin and best friend, are eager to prove themselves as men. And so they ride out to try to meet up with Kostya on his way home from serving the sultan. In doing so, they come upon an ambush against Kostya where their people suffer severe losses. Ivan can't hold back and joins the fray. He takes down several of the men against his family. Still in the end, he is injured and captured, even while Kostya, also injured, takes hostages of his own.
Ivan is transported back to the village of the people who attacked. He is held as a prisoner, but it is determined that the goal is to trade him in the spring for the prisoners taken captive by Kostya's group. The men from this village captured are needed sorely. Yet, one of the casualties of the attack is the village doctor/surgeon. And Helena has been serving as a midwife has the only medical knowledge of anyone else in the village and must step up to help heal Ivan as well as take on the new task of being the village doctor.
Ivan and Helena have a slow-building relationship. They aren't instant comrades, but even as slow as things were moving between them, the story didn't seem to lag. Yet what I thought would take the majority of the book was not the entirety of the story. And man will I say that things took a turn that I wasn't expecting. But I won't go there yet.
Ivan had a series of terrible things happen to him. It was getting to the point where I wondered how much more the poor man could take. His perseverance was admirable. And Helena too really. Her story goes in a direction that I didn't dare imagine and she handled the entire thing with grace and strength.
There's an additional narrator POV of the enemy. I didn't enjoy his chapters even though they were necessary, of course. It was so easy to root against this scumbag.
I will say that a couple of comments made in the story don't fit my personal understanding of Scripture--particularly about Jesus's return, but I think I fall into a minority in my view of these subjects. Time will tell. And interestingly, our understanding of Scripture can change over time even though Scripture itself doesn't change. There are things I once believed that I've changed my mind on. I wonder how much of the character's views are based upon the author's understanding versus what might have been the common understanding of someone living in this period.
Favorite quotes:
-"Would you have told Daniel the same thing? To give in so that he might escape the lion's den?" "We do not ask you to cease your prayers or forget your loyalty to God." "You ask me to give my loyalty to a lord who isn't mine. I cannot do that."
-"Animals can be replaced with coin. Freedom, once lost, can only be won with blood."
-"Sometimes, it is not the absence of God's blessing but instead a lack of effort that keeps up from our desires."
-"Would you stand at the foot of the cross and tell the Christ to come down and walk away, to reject His purpose because it is not pleasant?"
-"Perhaps God Himself has sent you to me because you are needed."
-"Sometimes, you have to search diligently to find joy."
-"Esther did not seek her marriage either, but God used her to save her people. Perhaps in time, you, too, can be an influence for good on behalf of your people."
Beyond the Crescent Sky took me on a roller coaster ride. There were many highs and many lows. The loops and twists to get to the end were thrilling and sometimes painful. I rooted for Ivan and Helena. My heart broke for Danillo, and I can't wait to read his story next. It was so good to catch up with Kostya and Susan. And I can't wait to continue this series. Beyond the Crescent Sky was such a good and surprising book for me that it gets 4.5 Stars. Have you read Beyond the Crescent Sky? What did you think? Let me know!
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