Review of The Shofet by Lee Olson

The author of the novel writes that the idea to write this story came to him when bad weather forced him to stay indoors in a cabin with only 3 books to read. One was of Tolkien and the other the Bible. Maybe that is why this story had a very Lord of the Rings-feeling to me.

Joshua lives in a village with more sheep than people. He and his friend Dan are on the verge of adulthood. Then one day death comes to the village. Horsemen kill many people and when Joshua arrives at his house he finds it burned to the ground, a familymember dead and the others missing. An old man he has never met tells him to follow him because he is in great danger. The horsemen are never far away.

Due to the many Hebrew words and the setting a 1000 years BC it felt to me as if I was reading a fantasy novel including Mount Doom. Then realising I had been there in Syria (Mount Druse and the lava fields). 

The setting is the kingdom of Salomon and  when you are familiar with the Song of Songs in the Bible you will have a clue what will be coming.

The book is a glorious read. Until the end. It suddenly stops. I read somewhere plans of a trilogy. I HATE it when stories are cut in pieces. A good trilogy contains of separate stories. That causes me to downgrade the rating to 3 stars.

I cannot find it on Amazon yet. I myself got an ARC.