Publisher Description
Thomas Hunter is a man torn between parallel realities, each teetering on the brink of disaster. Every time he falls asleep in one reality, he wakes in the other: one where he must race to outwit terrorists intent on releasing an unstoppable virus and the other, far into the future, where a forbidden love could forever destroy the Circle's ragtag resistance. Dive into the mesmerizing world of Ted Dekker's The Circle Series with the first novel— Black.
Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes mysterious assailants only to encounter a silent bullet that clips his head . . . and his world goes black. He awakens in an alternate reality and soon finds himself pulled between two worlds. In one, Thomas is an average guy working in a coffeehouse. In the other, he's a battle-scarred general leading a band of warriors known as the Circle.
Every time Thomas closes his eyes, he awakes in a different reality, where he must thwart a looming pandemic in one and confront forbidden love in another. Thomas can bridge both worlds, but he quickly realizes that he may not be able to save either. In this mind-bending adventure of suspense, thriller, and fantasy, the fate of both worlds now rests on his ability to shift realities through his dreams—and somehow find a way to change history.
Ted Dekker excels in crafting a narrative rich with allegorical depth and spiritual introspection, making The Circle Series a profound exploration of faith, redemption, and the human spirit. Experience the novel that started it all with Black and join the Circle with the rest of the series:
Book 1: BlackBook 2: RedBook 3: WhiteBook 4: Green
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clumsy prose, a plot that flagrantly capitalizes on the current interest in Islam, and some predictable twists and turns mar this latest novel from a bestselling author in the evangelical Christian market. Dekker, who has enjoyed great commercial success with thrillers like Heaven's Wager and Blessed Child, details the horrors suffered by women in some Islamic countries. The story chronicles a desperate flight to the United States by Saudi Arabian princess Miriam al-Asamm, who seeks to escape an unwanted arranged marriage to the evil Omar bin Khalid. Omar must marry Miriam in order to gain allies in his plan to overthrow the government and return Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist Islam. Meanwhile, in the United States, genius Seth Border is bored at Berkeley and pondering the existence of God. When he is thrown together with Miriam at a party, Seth uses a mysterious gift he's been given to see "possible futures" and helps Miriam escape from Khalid's henchmen. Although there are some promising plot threads, the story quickly disintegrates into one long predictable chase scene. The reader must stumble over strange sentences ("He was like a fragrant aroma that had swept into her life and resuscitated dying tissue") and even stranger ones ("She was nothing more than a helpless maggot here in his presence"). There's plenty of violence, mostly directed at women and often of an inferred sexual nature. In a time when evangelical Christian fiction is coming of age, this book is a disappointment.
