What I loved most about this novel was the character molding, the hope of the redemption message and how I got to better understand the history of the Bible.Īs the second book in the Mark of the Lion series An Echo in the Darkness carries on with character molding. In contrast to the increasing hopelessness and turmoil in A Voice in the Wind, An Echo in the Darkness brought reward and hope to the tribulation of its predecessor. The reader meets Julia in her fancy villa at the beginning of a treacherous illness and at the end of a long string of terrible decisions. He was able to heal her, but at the expense of a terribly scarred face and a crippled leg.

When she was still breathing after being brutally attacked by a lion, Alexander had compassion for her and instead of slicing her open for medical research he smuggled the dying Hadassah from the arena. We find Hadassah in a new role as an assistant to Alexander, a great physician. His tale is full of wonderfully colorful characters and revelation. Shortly thereafter, he resolves to seek God in order to curse him for taking Hadassah from him. He wanders about Ephesus and then Rome with a new pair of eyes that reveals the corrupt and broken nature of the two great cities. We start An Echo in the Darkness with the broken-hearted and hungry Marcus. Julia is the wholey self-absorbed, stubbornly independent daughter of Decimus.

Marcus is the son of the prominent and abundantly wealthy Decimus Valerian. When we meet Hadassah she is a Christian Jew taken from Jerusalem to Rome to become a slave in the Valerian household. SPOILER ALERT, if you have not read the first book in the series I will give away some key details below by sharing the basis of An Echo in the Darkness. In An Echo in the Darkness Hadassah, Marcus and Julia take over the narrative – Rizpah and Atretes take the narrative of As Sure as the Dawn, the third and final book in the series. In the first book the reader is introduced to all the main characters: Hadassah, Marcus and Julia Valerian, Rizpah and Atretes. An Echo in the Darkness is the second book in Francine River’s Mark of the Lion historical fiction series.

An echo of darkness