Voice of the Ancient by Connilyn Cossette

Voice of the Ancient
by Connilyn Cossette

ISBN-13: 9780764238918
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Bethany House
Released: August 15, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
As the eldest son of a Levite and a Philistine, Avidan dispises his duty to become a Levite musician and desires to fight in glorious battle. When Ammonites attack the city of Yavash-Gilead, he takes the opportunity to fight with his cousins for the newly crowned King Saul. But when one of the cousins goes missing during the battle, Avidan stays behind to search for him in hopes that he's still alive.

Keziah is the daughter of a clan chief in the territory of Manasseh. On the brink of a forced marriage to a loathsome man decades older than her, she has no choice but to run when she learns her life is in danger. Dressed as a boy, she takes her horse and heads for the south, hoping to find sanctuary with her mother's family.

Battling to survive the dangers surrounding them, Avidan and Keziah make a pact to travel together. As Keziah's true origins are revealed and Avidan's search for his cousin becomes increasingly futile, they must not only rely on each other to stay alive but learn to trust the true and eternal King of Israel to guide their every step.


My Review:
Voice of the Ancient is biblical fiction set during the first months of King Saul's reign (1 Samuel 10-12). The author added a lot about the battle and the aftermath that's not actually in the Bible. Her additions showed the people on the east side of the Jordan River as hardly knowing of God anymore and Saul as failing as a king right from the start. Keziah didn't worship God until Levite and storyteller Avi started telling her and other Hebrews about their history.

My main problem was that too many things were unrealistic. For example, a sword was coming at Avi and he was about to die, yet he had time to contemplate his life and wrong choices. I've taken fencing lessons, and you barely have time to recognize the danger before it hits; the contemplation comes afterward. The characters liked reminiscing in the middle of high danger when it'd be best to focus on getting out of the situation alive. Keziah's horse seemed to be permanently saddled and bridled with the only way to remove the saddle being to cut it off with a knife. Hm, you remove the saddle when not riding and cutting the saddle off in that situation probably would have injured the horse. I didn't understand why Avi didn't try to free the saddle first as that would have made more sense.

And Avi left a 15-year-old young man behind in a cave at the break of day only to come back and find him missing. His friends concluded that a huge pack of hyenas must have attacked, killed, and dragged the remains away. But hyenas are primarily nocturnal animals, and it's rare for them to prey on humans (especially adult humans). The only hyena that's maybe referred to one time in the Bible is the type that's primarily a scavenger, so they don't "hunt" in large packs. Why not pick a more believable animal? And Avi made a lot of assumptions about what happened to his missing cousin. He believed he'd found him every time someone said they had seen a boy about the right age, whether they saw any distinctive markings or not. I realize guilt was driving him, but that seemed a very futile method for finding him.

There was no sex or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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