REVIEWS of
THE GILBOA IRIS
a novel by Zahava D. Englard
New Release by Gefen Publishing House
THE GILBOA IRIS
a novel by Zahava D. Englard
New Release by Gefen Publishing House
http://
REVIEWS:
Riveting – breathless action – a rousing story of romance and international intrigue – the makings of a great movie! The Gilboa Iris weaves together the timeless love story of Dara and Roni, a feisty American student and a brilliant Israeli commando, against the backdrop of global terror involving the infiltration of the US’s defense stratum and a double homicide on American soil. Zahava D. Englard merges wit, history, adventure and the triumph of the human spirit into a sensational read!
– Grace Bennett, Inside Chappaqua Magazine
This moving story of love, death, rebirth and survival…a great read.
- Ruthie Blum, American-Israeli author and social critic
It was tough to tear my eyes away from The Gilboa Iris…. While the main character is not family (!) I did relate to her story and its incorporation of the very real tensions, terrorism fears and other issues that so many of us in the Western world must deal with today. A fast-paced, exciting read that has you praying for a happy ending.
– Eve Harow, Israel National Radio Show host
Hard to believe Gilboa Iris is Zahava Englard’s first novel – it sizzles, oozing passion of all kinds. Great plot, fascinating characters and best of all, it’s brimming with local lore. Don’t miss this one!
– Yocheved Miriam Russo, Freelance journalist, Israel
Vampires and Israeli soldiers inspire former N.J. author’s latest - The Jewish Standard
http://jstandard.com/content/
http://jstandard.com/content/
Abigail Klein Leichman • World
Published: 27 January 2012
Former Teaneck resident Zahava D. Englard credits best-selling authors Leon Uris and Stephenie Meyer for turning her into a novelist.
Uris’ magnum opus, “Exodus,” so inspired Englard as a teenager that she kept nudging her 15-year-old youngest child, Nili, to read it. Nili, however, prefers fantasy novels, like Meyer’s “Twilight” books.
“So to get me off her back, she said, ‘You read “Twilight” and I’ll read “Exodus.”’ And I actually fell in love with it and read the whole series,” says Englard. “After the first book, I thought, ‘I could do this.’ That’s when I decided to write a novel.”
The result of more than a year’s work, “The Gilboa Iris” is soon to be released by Israel-based Gefen Publishing House. The sometimes-racy romantic drama takes place in Israel, where Englard and her family have made their home since 2006, but it’s not merely a Harlequin-style story set on a kibbutz.
“I was always different from my friends growing up,” Englard relates. “I never touched romance novels. I was very focused on Israel and the Holocaust, and if I read a novel, it had to be about Israel. It was just natural that I read ‘Exodus,’ because it’s about Israel and it’s also a very passionate book — and I love passion.”
She even named her older daughter, Jordana, after a beautiful and brave character in the Uris classic. (The family also includes two boys, both serving in the Israel Defense Forces.)
Like the fictional Jordana, Dara — the similarly gorgeous and gutsy protagonist of “The Gilboa Iris” — suffers traumatic personal loss. The American Dara’s love interest, the macho Israeli soldier Roni, also deals with death in the context of the battlefield and global jihad.
“I tried hard not to base them on anyone actual, or to focus on any one real incident,” says Englard, whose previous book, “Settling for More: From Jersey to Judea” (Devora Publishing, 2009), is a compilation of e-mails she sent to friends and family during her first two years in Israel.
“The storyline came out of my experiences of visiting people who’ve lost family members to Arab terror,” she says. “I had all of them in my mind, especially David Hatuel, a father from Gush Katif whom I met a few months after his wife and four daughters were murdered. Knowing what he went through had a huge impact. I also knew that he somehow was able to go on with his life, remarry, and start anew.”
Englard wove that hopeful note into her writing. “I did not want a sad ending to my book. I wanted it to have a positive message.”
She geared her novice novel to a general audience, believing it has commercial appeal to non-Jewish and non-affiliated Jewish readers.
“It’s not an in-your-face pro-Israel book,” says Englard. “I wanted to acquaint people with the human side of life in this country, through characters they could relate to. It’s a novel of personal and national survival, triumph in the face of despair and over evil. As insurmountable as global jihad can be, the human spirit is stronger.”
Ilan Greenfield, CEO of Gefen, says “The Gilboa Iris” “deals with a realistic situation and brings out a great story. Our editor, who reads many books and doesn’t like them all, praises it from start to end. She loved every page.”
Were “The Gilboa Iris” to be made into a movie, Englard envisions “Twilight” stars Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz playing the leads.
Perhaps the same celeb pair could star in a remake of the Paul Newman-Eva Marie Saint film version of “Exodus,” which Nili Englard still hasn’t gotten around to reading.
Synopsis:
A blazing tale of romance, deceit, and international intrigue, THE GILBOA IRIS's rich characters and explosive plot take readers from Israel’s Gilboa Mountains to the streets of New York, to Germany’s Zehlendorf Forest, and back to Israel amid seminal events that rocked the world between 1982 and 2002.
The Protagonist: The daughter of a rocket physicist for the US department of defense,
Dara Harow sends her parents, into a tailspin of dual-loyalty anxiety when she plans to wed
Roni Ben-Ari, an Israeli officer in an elite counter-terrorist unit.
The Parents: Dr. Gabriel and Lillian Harow, would go to any lengths to preserve their social standing until they are targeted by a terror cell in hot pursuit of technology not yet found in any country’s arsenal.
The Protégé: Mace Devlin, MIT graduate and master of subterfuge offers Dara refuge– but at what price?
The Warrior: Roni Ben-Ari, brooding and mysterious, vanishes into Germany’s most ruthless hierarchy of terror and risks losing the woman he has vowed to love and protect.
The Redeemer: Uri Amrani, an Israeli air force pilot and a reformed womanizer, with his devil-may-care wit and charm, steals his way into Dara’s heart. But her budding perfect world is shattered when the terror that she thought she left behind in the States catches up to her in Israel with devastating results, and before long realizes she must come to terms with the shocking lie about the one man she trusted most.
REVIEWS:
Riveting – breathless action – a rousing story of romance and international intrigue – the makings of a great movie! The Gilboa Iris weaves together the timeless love story of Dara and Roni, a feisty American student and a brilliant Israeli commando, against the backdrop of global terror involving the infiltration of the US’s defense stratum and a double homicide on American soil. Zahava D. Englard merges wit, history, adventure and the triumph of the human spirit into a sensational read!
– Grace Bennett, Inside Chappaqua Magazine
This moving story of love, death, rebirth and survival…a great read.
- Ruthie Blum, American-Israeli author and social critic
It was tough to tear my eyes away from The Gilboa Iris…. While the main character is not family (!) I did relate to her story and its incorporation of the very real tensions, terrorism fears and other issues that so many of us in the Western world must deal with today. A fast-paced, exciting read that has you praying for a happy ending.
– Eve Harow, Israel National Radio Show host
Hard to believe Gilboa Iris is Zahava Englard’s first novel – it sizzles, oozing passion of all kinds. Great plot, fascinating characters and best of all, it’s brimming with local lore. Don’t miss this one!
– Yocheved Miriam Russo, Freelance journalist, Israel
Vampires and Israeli soldiers inspire former N.J. author’s latest - The Jewish Standard
http://jstandard.com/content/
http://jstandard.com/content/
Abigail Klein Leichman • World
Published: 27 January 2012
Former Teaneck resident Zahava D. Englard credits best-selling authors Leon Uris and Stephenie Meyer for turning her into a novelist.
Uris’ magnum opus, “Exodus,” so inspired Englard as a teenager that she kept nudging her 15-year-old youngest child, Nili, to read it. Nili, however, prefers fantasy novels, like Meyer’s “Twilight” books.
“So to get me off her back, she said, ‘You read “Twilight” and I’ll read “Exodus.”’ And I actually fell in love with it and read the whole series,” says Englard. “After the first book, I thought, ‘I could do this.’ That’s when I decided to write a novel.”
The result of more than a year’s work, “The Gilboa Iris” is soon to be released by Israel-based Gefen Publishing House. The sometimes-racy romantic drama takes place in Israel, where Englard and her family have made their home since 2006, but it’s not merely a Harlequin-style story set on a kibbutz.
“I was always different from my friends growing up,” Englard relates. “I never touched romance novels. I was very focused on Israel and the Holocaust, and if I read a novel, it had to be about Israel. It was just natural that I read ‘Exodus,’ because it’s about Israel and it’s also a very passionate book — and I love passion.”
She even named her older daughter, Jordana, after a beautiful and brave character in the Uris classic. (The family also includes two boys, both serving in the Israel Defense Forces.)
Like the fictional Jordana, Dara — the similarly gorgeous and gutsy protagonist of “The Gilboa Iris” — suffers traumatic personal loss. The American Dara’s love interest, the macho Israeli soldier Roni, also deals with death in the context of the battlefield and global jihad.
“I tried hard not to base them on anyone actual, or to focus on any one real incident,” says Englard, whose previous book, “Settling for More: From Jersey to Judea” (Devora Publishing, 2009), is a compilation of e-mails she sent to friends and family during her first two years in Israel.
“The storyline came out of my experiences of visiting people who’ve lost family members to Arab terror,” she says. “I had all of them in my mind, especially David Hatuel, a father from Gush Katif whom I met a few months after his wife and four daughters were murdered. Knowing what he went through had a huge impact. I also knew that he somehow was able to go on with his life, remarry, and start anew.”
Englard wove that hopeful note into her writing. “I did not want a sad ending to my book. I wanted it to have a positive message.”
She geared her novice novel to a general audience, believing it has commercial appeal to non-Jewish and non-affiliated Jewish readers.
“It’s not an in-your-face pro-Israel book,” says Englard. “I wanted to acquaint people with the human side of life in this country, through characters they could relate to. It’s a novel of personal and national survival, triumph in the face of despair and over evil. As insurmountable as global jihad can be, the human spirit is stronger.”
Ilan Greenfield, CEO of Gefen, says “The Gilboa Iris” “deals with a realistic situation and brings out a great story. Our editor, who reads many books and doesn’t like them all, praises it from start to end. She loved every page.”
Were “The Gilboa Iris” to be made into a movie, Englard envisions “Twilight” stars Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz playing the leads.
Perhaps the same celeb pair could star in a remake of the Paul Newman-Eva Marie Saint film version of “Exodus,” which Nili Englard still hasn’t gotten around to reading.
Synopsis:
A blazing tale of romance, deceit, and international intrigue, THE GILBOA IRIS's rich characters and explosive plot take readers from Israel’s Gilboa Mountains to the streets of New York, to Germany’s Zehlendorf Forest, and back to Israel amid seminal events that rocked the world between 1982 and 2002.
The Protagonist: The daughter of a rocket physicist for the US department of defense,
Dara Harow sends her parents, into a tailspin of dual-loyalty anxiety when she plans to wed
Roni Ben-Ari, an Israeli officer in an elite counter-terrorist unit.
The Parents: Dr. Gabriel and Lillian Harow, would go to any lengths to preserve their social standing until they are targeted by a terror cell in hot pursuit of technology not yet found in any country’s arsenal.
The Protégé: Mace Devlin, MIT graduate and master of subterfuge offers Dara refuge– but at what price?
The Warrior: Roni Ben-Ari, brooding and mysterious, vanishes into Germany’s most ruthless hierarchy of terror and risks losing the woman he has vowed to love and protect.
The Redeemer: Uri Amrani, an Israeli air force pilot and a reformed womanizer, with his devil-may-care wit and charm, steals his way into Dara’s heart. But her budding perfect world is shattered when the terror that she thought she left behind in the States catches up to her in Israel with devastating results, and before long realizes she must come to terms with the shocking lie about the one man she trusted most.
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