The Prophetess
 Barbara Wood
 (Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
 1997 Warner Books; Reprint edition
 ISBN: 0446603805

On the eve of the Millennium, Dr. Alexander unearths a cache of scrolls which reveal a hidden religious history that governments, millionaires & the clergy will stop at nothing to suppress.

Catherine Alexander is a biblical archaeologist, scrabbling in the Sinai desert for a sacred well mentioned in a thousand-year-old book written by a castaway Arab. Breathing down her neck are the bulldozers of a development contractor, eager to build a luxury Egyptian resort.

In a field defended by an unyielding masculine Old Guard who barely tolerate women in their ranks, they not only ferociously resent such intrusions, they discount the new ideas these women bring.

When Dr. Alexander had previously applied for a permit to search for the Bir Miryam - the Well of Miriam, sister to Moses - she had met with insurmountable indifference and red tape. When she applied to search for the Well of Moses, she was granted her permit without a murmur.

Now, with a rope around her waist, she is about to crawl down a tunnel bored through rock, to what she hopes is the Well of Miriam. To a place in time that will make sense of her theory about women in the Old Testament, about women in the company of Jesus and about her mother's lifetime work.

From this moment on, Barbara Wood has created a fast-paced, absorbing read, with some strange perspectives, her heroine a bit of an innocent and some rather nasty, unlikely foes. I found Barbara Wood's idea of a prophetess with that kind of information and pedigree, stimulating and her facts and fiction, fascinating.

This is a book for all the Judeo-Christian women who murmured as they learnt the rote of male biblical heroes: “where, oh where have the all heroines gone?”

The Prophetess, was a thrill of an adventure, reminding me of such luminaries as Mary Stewart, Helen MacInnes and Mary Renault. Barbara Wood has woven a fine & provoking yarn.

Others by Barbara Wood: Virgins of Paradise, Domina, The Magdalene Scrolls, Vital Signs, The Dreaming et al.
(04/12/99)

Rebecca