A House in the Land of Shinar

<p>A historical novel set in 3500 B.C. in the Middle East. How a Bedouin Arab's mission to avenge the sacrifice of his beloved young daughter might have led to the beginning of Judaism.</p><p>Devastated by his daughter's death Tiras grows determined to find a kinder god and save his two sons and his tribe from their vicious priest and terrifying bull-god. Accompanied only by his donkey he leaves Saudi Arabia and crosses the dangerous Nefud Desert to sophisticated Sumer in southern Iraq. The Sumerian gods he'd learned during his tribe's migrations are sympathetic. In Sumer he meets Mah Ummia a scholar who teaches Tiras about the country's gods. After numerous adventures and a forbidden love affair Tiras returns to his tribe with the roots of a new religion. But he struggles to persuade his suspicious tribe to replace their priest and ferocious bull-god with a new unseen but loving god and to stop their threats to his family. Should he continue risking his family's life to help the tribe?</p><p> </p><p>...a captivating nuanced account...the plot is by turns as gripping as it is moving...a historically impressive work... - <em>Kirkus Reviews</em></p>