Thief of Corinth

Tessa Afshar is the Christy Award-winning author of several works of biblical fiction.  She holds an MDiv from Yale University, where she served as co-chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School.  She has worked in ministry ever since.

You can connect with her via her website:
www.tessaafshar.com.

First-Century Corinth is a city teeming with commerce and charm.  It's also filled with danger and corruption - the perfect setting for Ariadne's greatest adventure.

After years spent living with her mother and oppressive grandfather in Athens, Ariadne runs away to her father's home in Corinth, only to discover the perilous secret that destroyed his marriage:  though a Greek of high birth, Galenos is the infamous thief who has been robbing the city's corrupt of their ill-gotten gains.

Desperate to keep him safe, Ariadne risks her good name, her freedom, and the love of the man she adores to become her father's apprentice.  As her unusual athletic ability leads her into dangerous exploits, Ariadne discovers that she secretly revels in playing with fire.  But when the wrong person discovers their secret, Ariadne and her father find their future - and very lives -  hanging in the balance.

When they befriend a Jewish rabbi named Paul, they realize that his radical message challenges everything they've fought to build, yet offers something neither dared hope for.

My Thoughts:
Afshar has a gift...a gift of transporting her readers back in time.  With amazing attention to detail derived from careful research, Afshar takes readers on a journey to and through Corinth in New Testament biblical times in her latest book, Thief of Corinth.

With the very first line of the Prologue...

"You asked me once how a woman like me could become a thief.  How could I, having everything - a father's love, a lavish home, an athlete's accolades - turn to lawlessness and crime?"

Afshar draws the reader into another world.  I found that once I started Ariadne's story, I could not put it down.  The sites, sounds, and smells were so vivid as I read.

I also appreciated how Afshar's writing in this book is so clear with the gospel in a number of passages such as this one...

"It would be sad indeed if the world were at the mercy of an impersonal force, a detached power without the ability to love.  The God I speak of gives life and breath to everything.  To this clump of mint, to you, to me.  He knows the number of hairs on your head.  He cares for the desires of your heart.  Underneath the currents of your life, he stretches his everlasting arms.  He has set his affections on you, though he knows your every weakness.  The broken and the good in you.  His love makes you whole.  No man can give you this.  Only God."

Afshar has a particular way of weaving in references to Scripture and this was especially so in Thief of Corinth.  She drives me to search out the Scriptures for myself.

Afshar also includes such glorious truth as a natural part of the dialogue and thoughts of her characters...

"Perhaps it is not so much the years we live as the experiences we have in them."

"I thought the worst troubles in life came through unfulfilled desires.  Came because our longings went unmet.  I did not realize that the answers to our deepest pleas could be a s painful as they were healing."

"Somehow mercy had won the battle.  I had not received what I deserved.  Paul would have called it grace.  I just knew I was loved when I deserved to be spurned."

"Love is kind.  When the Love that established the universe starts moving in you, I suppose you lean toward kindness too."

I don't often re-read books that I keep on my shelf.  Afshar's books are on my keeper shelf and most of them have been read more than once.  Thief of Corinth is in that category.

*I received a complimentary Advanced Reader's Copy of the book from the publisher.  All opinions stated here are my own.

Blessings readers,
Jennifer