Thera — Zeruya Shalev

Ella Miller is a 36-year-old archaeologist studying one of the largest volcanic blasts in history, the famous Thera eruption. She develops a novel theory that the devasting blast sparked the biblical ten plagues, which led to the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. Like her research subject, Ella's life is undergoing tectonic shifts. Her marriage to her former mentor, the needy and brutish Amnon, has come to an end. Her relationships with her intellectually towering father and servile wife are unbearable. Her young son, Gili, swings wildly from adaptability to despair. Her new lover must face up to his own recently destroyed marriage. Ella seeks to build a new kingdom atop the ruins of the old, but murmurings beneath the family edifice create fault lines that threaten to destabilize her future. Thera presents a dazzling depiction of family life. In sharp, unerring prose, it excavates the archaeology of the human soul.