While I couldn’t stop reading, it was a jumpy read. ( )

I had read another book by Nikki Gemmell, Love Song, and I was very impressed with it. Gemmell is Australian although she now lives in England and my library only has two books written by her. Australian friends recommended this book and one sent it to me. Sadly I did not find it as good as Love Song although it is an interesting book.

In an unspecified country religious factions are battling for prominence. One family of the non-prominent faction try to hide away in the country. The mother and father are scientists who were involved with a secret project involving a weapon of mass destruction. Their location is discovered and the parents decide to protect their children by drugging them and sending them with a good friend. So the children wake up in a strange room with no idea where they are or how they got there. The mother is somehow able to see them and hear them. She writes down the story in Latin which eventually makes its way a Latin scholar in England.

The book consists of 152 chapters and none are more than 3 pages long. At the end of each chapter is a line from a religious text which the woman found underlined in books from her husband. All of these quotes extol love and compassion which is precisely the opposite that religious factions making war believe. How many more centuries must mankind make war before the lesson of these sayings is learned? ( )