The Sunflower Season — Murray Pura

Exquisitely written, the tale is as simple as it is complex in its scope. Freeman Chernenko's maternal grandmother, a Ukrainian immigrant to America, is known in the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint because of her Joan-of-Arc-like role during World War Two. Having gone to fight in the present conflict among Russia, Ukraine, and Ukraine rebels, Freeman is assigned to defend a shrine to St. Zoya. A religious skeptic, Freeman is shocked to discover his ancestry and doubts it, finding himself in a spiritual dilemma amid an enemy, troops defending the shrine among wheat and sunflower fields, nuns, monks, miraculous healings, meadowlark twitterings, Van Gogh-like paintings, passionate love and bloody combat.The fortunate readers of this superbly presented story will be enraptured. And may there be many! Five stars.Jon Michael Miller for Readers' Favorite