Bitter for Sweet
This is the story of Herod the Great’s mother and how she brought the Arabic world of Nabataea and the Latin world of Rome to the Land of Israel.
The Middle East, 76 BCE. Internal power struggles consume Jerusalem’s attention while surrounding nations manipulate events for their own purposes. Two young women from opposite worlds—Pninah, a poor Jewish girl subject to seizures, and Cypros, a Nabataean princess—are thrust by violent events into a collision course with each other and history.
Bitter for Sweet carries on the tradition of intense, lyrical, and deeply moving historical fiction started in the award‑winning Keziah’s Song and Blind Man’s Labyrinth. By capturing the era and its people with his characteristic raw intimacy and plainsong prose style, Daryl Potter brings this story of these women—and a fateful Roman invitation—vividly to life.
This is a tale about hope and consequences that you will remember for the rest of your life.
“I’ve never read such an engrossing book...[T]he story of a Nabatean princess, and a poor Jewish girl afflicted with seizures shows the personal impact of the politics of the time. Cypros and Pninah illustrate the enduring resilience of women, the terrors and triumphs of their positions in the roiling hotbed of intrigue and violence, and the indomitable spirit that allows both to rise from the wreckage of old dreams to build new and better realities for themselves and those closest to their hearts ...”
Booksprout (reviewer: Michelle S)