Denver, Colo., Aug 22, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Canadian artist and Catholic author Michael O’Brien enamored readers in 1999 with his best-selling novel, ‘Father Elijah’, about a Carmelite priest called upon to convert the antichrist. Now, in his long awaited prequel to that apocalyptic thriller, O’Brien takes readers on a journey into the heart of a man and the small choices which, as he says, “change the world.”
Set in Warsaw during the height of the Nazi occupation, Sophia House follows the struggles of bookshop owner Pawel Tarnowski, whom readers will recognize as the oft-referenced protector of Father Elijah’s protagonist David Schaffer.
The book, which takes a considerably slower pace than its heart-pounding sequel, forces its reader to face the realities of sin and the broken images of mother, father, male and female.
O’Brien demonstrates, through these broken images, the nature of original sin, which binds mankind in fear--and the freedom, often surprising, which comes from accepting God’s grace and forgiveness.