Wilderness Rising Book Review

A Church Builder Novel

SUMMARY: It began as a search for the truth about her best friend’s death. Now Bethany Barclay is caught in the ultimate struggle to keep faith alive.
     The Wilderness, an ancient cabal bent on destroying Christianity, has murdered Bethany’s best friend, framed her for acts of terrorism, and captured the brilliant teen hacker she vowed to protect. To ransom the girl, Bethany must traverse England and Europe to find the Pilate Stone—a mysterious first-century artifact that might not even exist.
     She’s not the only one who wants the stone. The Garden, a powerful group of intellectuals sworn to save the Church and help Bethany, is willing to betray her to achieve their higher goals. And a mysterious third faction lurks in the shadows, waiting for her to stumble.
     Alone and on the run in this international landscape of double and triple agents, Bethany’s quest becomes an ever more complex and dangerous contest against players who don’t play fair.
     In this riveting sequel to The Church Builder, many of A. L. Shield’s cunning characters are ruthlessly devoted to preserving a world where faith is possible. Others aim to brutally, and finally, undermine belief.
     Including Bethany’s.

REVIEW:  My daughter and I have been anxiously waiting for this book since we finished the first one.  Now, you DEFINITELY need to read the first book, The Church Builder, before reading this one or you will not be able to follow along.  Even though I had read it, it had been a while so I had trouble trying to remember what happened previously, how it was relevant to this story and who all was involved how.  After a few chapters, everything started falling back into place.
    The author does an excellent job keeping you guessing and sitting on the edge of your seat, quickly turning the pages to see what happens next.  This book is like a classic spy/whodunit-type novel, with all the twists, turns and not knowing who to trust. Quite a few questions from the previous publication were answered and things started falling into place.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Bethany is one character I won't easily forget.

This book was provided by Zondervan and Booklook Bloggers for review without compensation.

A.L. Shields  is a pseudonym for Stephen L. Carter, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught for thirty years. He is also the author of seven acclaimed works of nonfiction and five best-selling novels. His first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), spent eleven weeks on the New York Times best seller list.