Havah
Authors: Tosca Lee
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Christian, #Religious, #Thrillers, #Suspense
A passionate and riveting story of the Bible’s first woman. Lee’s superior storytelling will have readers weeping for all that Havah forfeited by a single damning choice.
—Publishers Weekly
Starred Review
Havah
is a novel with boundless imagination.
—Eric Wilson,
New York Times
best-selling author of
Field of Blood
and
Fireproof
Tosca Lee is the most evocative storyteller to come along in ages. Never has the account of the Fall been so humanized.
—Sharon K. Souza,
author of
Lying on Sunday
An enchanting story masterfully told by an extraordinary wordsmith.
—Robert Liparulo,
author of
Deadfall
and
Comes a Horseman
With beautiful prose and breathtaking description, Tosca Lee has breathed new life into the story we thought we knew so well.
—Jake Chism,
FictionAddict.com
Tosca Lee has given us a veritable literary feast in
Havah.
Her vivid story of the original earth mother nourishes while her delicious, sensuous use of language delights. Devour it.
—Claudia Mair Burney,
Christy Award Finalist and author of
Wounded
The story of Eve comes alive in this interpretation of the first people of the Bible. Even today, this story of love, longing, and loss offers encouragement.
—Romantic Times
Much has been written about Eve . . . but I doubt her heart has ever been so deeply plumbed as in this lyrical novel by Tosca Lee.
—Historical Novel Reviews
Rich and mesmerizing. Tosca Lee’s prose is breathtaking, her story of grace utterly transforming.
Havah
is nothing less than a masterpiece.
—Nicole Baart,
Christy Award Finalist and author of
The Moment Between
Havah
is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary woman. Tosca Lee has given us a bold retelling of a tale we all thought we knew.
—Randy Ingermanson,
Christy Award-Winning author of
Retribution
I have never read a book like
Havah.
It’s brilliantly conceived, uniquely delivered, and phenomenally profound.
—Lissa Halls Johnson,
author of
Kirk Cameron: Still Growing
I found myself fascinated by Tosca Lee’s mind, her capacity to spin a story, and the sheer volume of research that must’ve informed this compelling read.
—Mary DeMuth,
author of
Daisy Chain
Havah
is not only a novel full of beautiful prose; it is a book that causes the reader to pause and consider the state of the soul within.
—Kelly Klepfer,
Amazon.com Top 1,000 Reviewer
In
Havah
, Lee demonstrates her ability to develop a character that goes far beyond cliché. Lee dares again to look into Christian assumption.
—Lincoln Journal-Star
Havah
is an epic and explosive novel. Stunning prose and evocative imagery hallmark this retelling of life’s beginnings through the heart and voice of Eve.
—Relz Reviews
Lee’s “fiction” somehow doesn’t feel like make-believe at all.
—Michelle Van Loon,
author of
Uprooted
and
Parable Life
Evocative, lush. . . . This is not formula “Christian Fiction” and avoids providing easy spiritual answers to the inevitable questions the characters face.
—Synchronized Chaos
Havah
has set a very high standard in the realm of speculative fiction.
—Inside Corner Book Reviews
Imagery so real I could see for myself the sparkling, newly formed world.
—Barbara Warren,
Amazon.com Top 1,000 Reviewer
I never read a novel twice, but I double-read this one, with intense delight to the last page, both times.
—ChristianBook.com
Going beyond Sunday school stereotypes,
Havah
introduces us to a gloriously human Eve who reflects the strength and beauty of any woman or man who truly hungers for the presence of God.
—Meredith Efken,
author of
Lucky Baby
With delicious prose, Tosca Lee captures the passion, innocence, fatal mishap, and tragedy that were our first mother’s life.
—Karen Lee-Thorp,
coauthor of the
Doing Life Together Bible studies
Tosca Lee’s version of
Paradise Lost
makes Eve’s far-distant story into a personal tale of loss and love. Lush, lyrical, and deeply moving.
—Lyn Cote,
author of
Blessed Assurance
A moving story that plumbs the depths of human experience, faith, and spirituality.
—
Press & Sun Bulletin,
Binghamton, NY
The emotional pull of this story is truly divine. Tosca’s powerful use of language is very moving and the ending is perfectly written. I stand amazed.
—Favorite PASTimes
This is the story of Adam and Eve as it really might have been. The writing is poetic and lyrical, the story compelling and captivating.
—Virginia Smith,
author of
Stuck in the Middle
Our beginning deeply, richly, beautifully imagined, lifting our hearts in worship to the One that is.
—Louise M. Gouge,
author of
Then Came Hope
Copyright © 2010 by QUELLE LLC
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-1-4336-6879-1
Published by B&H Publishing Group
Nashville, Tennessee
Dewey Decimal Classification: F
Subject Heading: EVE (BIBLICAL FIGURE)— FICTION \ BIBLE. O.T. GENESIS—FICTION \ WOMEN IN THE BIBLE—FICTION
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 • 14 13 12 11 10
For my mother and for you.
Contents
PROLOGUE
I have seen paradise and ruin. I have known bliss and terror. I have walked with God.
And I know that God made the heart the most fragile and resilient of organs, that a lifetime of joy and pain might be encased in one mortal chamber.
I still recall my first moment of consciousness—an awareness I’ve never seen in the eyes of any of my own children at birth: the sheer ignorance and genius of consciousness, when we know nothing and accept everything.
Of course, the memory of that waking moment is fainter now, like the smell of the soil of that garden, like the leaves of the fig tree in Eden after dawn—dew and leaf green. It fades with that sense of something once tasted on the tip of the tongue, savored now in memory, replaced by the taste of something similar but never quite the same.
His breath a lost sough, the scent of earth and leaf mold that was his sweaty skin has faded too quickly. So like an Eden dawn—dew on fig leaves.
His eyes were blue, my Adam’s.
How I celebrated that color, shrouded now in shriveled eyelids—he who was never intended to have even a wrinkle!
But even as I bend to smooth his cheek, my hair has become a white waterfall upon his Eden—flesh and loins that gave life to so many.
I think for a moment that I hear the One and that he is weeping. It is the first time I have heard him in so long, and my heart cries out: He is dead! My father, my brother, my love!
I envy the earth that envelops him. I envy the dust that comes of him and my children who sow and eat of it.
This language of Adam—the word that meant merely “man” before it was his name—given him by God himself, is now mine. And this is my love song. I will craft these words into the likeness of the man before I, too, return to the earth of Adam’s bosom.
My story has been told in only the barest of terms. It is time you heard it all. It is my testament to the strength of the heart, which has such capacity for joy, such space for sorrow, like a vessel that fills and fills without bursting.
My seasons are nearly as many as a thousand. So now listen, sons, and hear me, daughters. I, Havah, fashioned by God of Adam, say this:
In the beginning, there was God . . .
But for me, there was Adam.
THE GARDEN
1
A whisper in my ear:
Wake!
BLUE. A SEA AWASH with nothing but a drifting bit of down, flotsam on an invisible current. I closed my eyes. Light illuminated the thin tissues of my eyelids.