Murray Pura

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