About the Book

Book: A Hope Fulfilled

Author: April W Gardner

Genre: Biblical Fiction (Obadiah)

Release Date: November, 2023

One Hebrew slave’s courage and faith opens the gate on Edom’s demise.

Tikvah, a Hebrew slave in Edom, lives in hope of once again seeing Jerusalem, the Holy City. When a Babylonian general and his dashing Jewish liaison arrive at her master’s house, whispering plans of Edom’s destruction, she senses Yahweh at work. After all, there’s a prophecy foretelling His justice upon the kingdom. Tikvah clings to that promise while obediently following the call of service into the heart of danger. If only there were a promise she would come out the other side alive.

Click here to get your copy!

This is a novella about the prophecy of Obadiah. It is also a love story. While reading this story we get an inside look at what a Jewish slave goes through. The relationship between Tovah and another blind slave who cannot talk is inspiring. I think readers would enjoy this story but I think it would have been better as a full length novel or maybe a series of novellas that ends with a cliff hanger( but I am not a writer, so what do I know.) At the end of most of the chapters there is the Biblical reference which that part of the story is taken from. This novel shows that faith in God is rewarded.

I received a complimentary copy from the author and Celebrate Lit and these opinions are my own.

About the Author

April W Gardner is an indie author whose great passion is historical romance with themes of Native American and Southeastern U.S. culture. Copyeditor, mother of two grown children, and non-trad college student, April lives in South Texas with her husband and two German Shepherds. In no particular order, April dreams of owning a horse, learning a third language, and visiting all the national parks.

More from April

So…Obadiah? Who ever heard of Obadiah as the backdrop for biblical fiction? I hadn’t. But that’s not where A Hope Fulfilled began…

In late December 2021, while deciding on a Bible reading goal for the upcoming year, I pondered which sections of the Bible I knew least. The minor prophets came to mind right off, then camped there as I asked myself what I knew about these little books.

I’d heard a million sermons preached from one or another of them over the years, but could I give even a one-sentence summary on any of the twelve? That question required a moment’s thought, which produced Jonah and the big fish, Hosea and his harlot wife, Joel and the locusts, Amos and… Uh, er, uh…

This was a problem. After burning some brain cells on the matter, I finally hung my head and admitted I was a minor failure. If I’d been tested right then on the minor prophets, I would have received a big red F.

How was this possible? I’m a missionary’s kid who never missed a church service, for goodness’ sake. This was unacceptable. I had an MK reputation to uphold.

Kidding, kidding. But the point remains. After 4.5 decades in church, I should be able to state every book’s title and theme. At a minimum. Anything less is spiritual laziness.

With that challenge in mind, I hitched up my trousers and set to work. My task? One minor prophet a month. I would read each one again and again, really drilling them home, absorbing their messages and banishing my spiritual “shame.”

By April, and my fourth read of Obadiah, I stared at my Bible, the verses swimming before me, and admitted to a second problem—despite my faithful rereading, the first four books were all running together in a mental smear of prophety messages.

Warning, judgment, doom, gloom. There was hope in there, too, of course. Praise God. And a harlot wife. I had that one down. But I was no closer to being able to distinguish them, to really understand the books with any kind of true ownership.

Since I’m a goal-girl, it made me a little sad to set aside my twelve-prophet year, but there was no getting around it. If this was going to work, I would have to go deeper, get messier, put on my work gloves and knee pads, and start digging.

New goal! Understand Obadiah. I’d worry about the rest once I had this one down. Fifteen months and three written books later, here we are, celebrating the release of my first biblical fiction, A Hope Fulfilled.

So, how did I get from studying a minor prophet to writing biblical fiction? The journey from point A to point B wasn’t very long. The series (A Fire and a Flame) started out as a Bible commentary for women, but when I got to exploring the history around Obadiah, my fiction brain kinda took over. It does that sometimes. Silly brain.

I did finish the commentary, but as soon as I allowed myself to ponder all the what-ifs of the event, the novella practically wrote itself.

Obadiah gives a fiction writer almost no details to build on. So, A Hope Fulfilled is what one might call an artist’s rendition of what might have happened during the fall of Edom. There were probably Hebrew slaves in Edom. One of them probably knew the prophecy of Edom’s doom. And that somebody might have, just might have, longed to help God’s justice play out.

Thus, Tikah and her story, A Hope Fulfilled, were born.