The king has been murdered, a usurper seizes the throne, and the kingdom faces utter destruction unless the true heir can be found. Six individuals from different walks of life are drawn into the quest to find the lost heir and help him in his claim to the throne. A young man seeking adventure, a repentant assassin seeking to find his lost sister, a princess trying to discover her father's killer, a usurper seeking revenge for his family's murder, a young man yearning for approval from his father and seeking his place in the kingdom, and an exiled warrior trying to restore his honor and rescue his beloved.Finally finding the heir, the kingdom is torn apart as people choose whether to support the usurper or the true heir. Each individual is confronted with a choice also: to seek their own or take a chance on faith in something greater.

A novel approach to Israelite kinship, arguing that maternal kinship bonds played key social, economic, and political roles for a son who aspired to inherit his father’s household Upending traditional scholarship on patrilineal genealogy, Cynthia Chapman draws on twenty years of research to uncover an underappreciated yet socially significant kinship unit in the Bible: “the house of the mother.” In households where a man had two or more wives, siblings born to the same mother worked to promote and protect one another’s interests. Revealing the hierarchies of the maternal houses and political divisions within the national house of Israel, this book provides us with a nuanced understanding of domestic and political life in ancient Israel.

An “original and moving” (The New York Times Book Review), “must-read” (People) portrait of an unforgettable, patrician Manhattan family and the tangled nature of inheritance and legacy, from the author of Like Mother, Like Mother “An absorbing page-turner, full of sex and secrets . . . I loved getting to know the entire Falkes clan.”—New York Times bestselling author Emma Straub AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR When English-born lawyer Rupert Falkes dies, his wife and five adult sons are bereft—even more so when six months later, their grieving is interrupted by an unknown woman suing Rupert’s estate, claiming that he was also the father to her two sons. The Falkes brothers are pitched into turmoil, at once missing their father and feeling betrayed by him. In disconcerting contrast, their mother, Eleanor, is cool and calm, showing preternatural composure. Eleanor and Rupert had made an admirable life together, and they were proud of their handsome, talented sons: Harry, a brash law professor; Will, a savvy Hollywood agent; Sam, an astute doctor and scientific researcher; Jack, a jazz trumpet prodigy; Tom, a public-spirited federal prosecutor. The brothers see their identity and success as inextricably tied to family loyalty—a loyalty they always believed their father shared. Struggling to reclaim their identity, the brothers find Eleanor’s sympathy toward the woman and her sons confounding, and they begin to question whether they knew either of their parents at all.