Sunday, May 22, 2016

The Alliance by Jolina Petersheim


 "Sometimes life isn't as cut-and-dried as we'd like it to be. We just have to know that, regardless of what happens, God can work all things together for good." - Moses, in Jolina Petersheim's  The Alliance.




What would happen if one event turned your world upside down?  If all that you had been taught suddenly you are unsure of. Would your faith be shaken?  Would you give up on God now that your  future is uncertain...


In The Alliance by Jolina Petersheim, A young Mennonite girl named Leora Ebersole has had several events shake her faith, Her Father left, her mother died and overnight she has become the caretaker of her brother Seth, Sister Anna and her Grandmother.  As her life starts to become normal again, a plane crashes into her backyard.  The pilot, Moses Hughes is rescued from the wreckage but the townspeople notice something strange.  At the same time his plane crashed, all the cars stopped working, the saw at the mill stopped running and all of the electricity was shut off. Even the Englischer’s Cell phones would not turn on. Moses thinks that an EMP, (an Electro-Magnetic Pulse) was  detonated somewhere in the area but he is not sure how widespread the outages may be. He tells them that if it was an EMP bomb, then the electronics will never work again. Leora and Moses work with the community on how to get through this situation. Because they are a Mennonite community, they do not rely on electronics to survive so they are not as affected as those in the nearby city of Liberty.  Their biggest threat is running out of food because they want to be able to help anyone who comes by the Community.  Moses is also worried about people from the surrounding cities attacking the small community for their food. The Elders say to trust God but Moses does not believe that anymore, especially after some of the events in his past. So the Community and the Englischer’s decide to put away their differences ( most of them anyway) and form an alliance with the following rules,  No Violence is to be used  unless they are fired upon first and everyone must obey the laws of the Community while they are living within its walls.  Then something happens to Leora’s family that makes her question her faith and beliefs even more, because now she wants revenge. Moses knows the guilt and frustration that can lead to revenge but he also knows the way revenge can eat your life away. He realizes that his pacifist friend Leora is not thinking clearly.  But will he be able to help her before she does something that she will regret for the rest of her life?   As the danger gets closer, Will the small community trust that God will protect and provide for them or will they succumb to fear and give up their Pacifist belief and fight? 
You will have to read it to find out!

 So what did I think about the book?
 I think that the book was well written and it makes you think, "What if something like this would happen?"  It is written in a different style then most books with the characters Leora and Moses alternating in telling the story from their point of view.  Though there was that small bit of hope that you hold on to until the end of the book, it was a little bit dark for me. The Characters were suffering this catastrophe so of course, everything is not peachy, but I like a book with some humor and this book did not have any.  I may read the second book in the series because I like the characters and I would like to see what happens.  But Overall I give the book 3 out of 5 stars.  I would recommend this book to someone who likes dystopian fiction or an end of the world storyline.



Don't forget to check out her other books! 
http://www.jolinapetersheim.com/books/


Happy Reading :)


 I would like to thank Tyndale House Publishers for allowing me to read and review this book in return for a free copy and I was not asked to write a favorable review, Just a honest one.
                                                                   


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