| Book Review – Pierced by a Sword |
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by
Bud Macfarlane, Jr.
Book review by Tom Gilbert
 End time and apocalyptic thrillers are all the rage these days. Most
of them are focused on various Rapture scenarios or the imminent rise
of an Anti-Christ. The phenomenal popularity of the Left Behind series
has many other writers, agents and publishers scrambling to capture
lightning in a bottle.
The refreshingly different approach of Pierced
by a Sword, by Bud
MacFarlane Jr. (Saint Jude Media) is
all the more enhanced because of this. This is
a near-future thriller with prophetic implications
coming from a different direction. The author
is unabashedly Catholic
and the plot revolves around visions and messages
from Heaven based on the revelations from the Virgin
Mary. It would be a mistake to reduce it to just
a Marian theme, however. It’s
also wrong to write off the storyline as appealing
only to Roman Catholics. On the contrary, the story
is riveting and the characters come from a variety
of backgrounds, some grounded in a strong faith,
others caught up in the events and grappling with
the meaning of it all
while struggling with personal, spiritual and
materialistic quests.
All the heroes of the story are not immediately
apparent. Several have a great deal of conflict to resolve and redemption
comes in
different ways. A hard drinking and smoking
financial trader, a high-rolling drug dealer about to crash, a wise-cracking
priest with a penchant
for rubbing his superiors the wrong way, a beautiful
unwed pregnant woman, a high ranking Mormon official, an Irish Pope
who drives his
own car and travels in disguise, a cigar chomping
tycoon, a former NFL great, and a college professor from Notre Dame
and expert on Marian
apparitions: these are some of the characters
involved in the unfolding plot of cosmic proportions. You may find
yourself identifying specifically
with one or more key players.
All good fiction is a combination of characters so real you identify with them and a story
thick with conflict and trouble. This book delivers both and makes for a page turner. Anticipation
at every chapter end kept me enthralled. It’s also difficult
to predict what will happen so I found myself thinking about the book and its
characters when I was away from the reading. This had the combined impact of keeping me
caring about those characters and also thinking about the themes of the book. This is how evangelistic
fiction becomes truly effective.
The distribution model for “Pierced
by a Sword” and
the other “best-sellers” by author Bud Macfarlane,
Jr. is unusual. You might find
the books in stores, but mostly you’ll
get turned on to one by a friend, word-of-mouth
or through the web site for Saint Jude Media at CatholiCity.com.
They refuse to sell the books by traditional
publishing means, asking instead that you
request the novels for free and give a small
donation for shipping and handling…if you want to. The success
is amazing. Hundreds
of thousands of readers have discovered the
pleasure of reading this book.
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Scripture taken from
the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.Copyright
© 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by
permission of International Bible Society.
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are
registered trademarks of International Bible Society.
Use of either trademark for the offering of goods
or services requires the prior written consent of
International Bible Society.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from
the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright
©1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189, USA. All rights
reserved.
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