ESTHER

A Jerusalem Love Story

“What one remembers of love depends on whether it was blissful or painful; whether it brought fulfillment or anguish. My love for Esther never seemed to fit either category. My wife called it an obsession. Perhaps it was . . .”

When Max, a hard-nosed, cynical young journalist, first meets the passionate, restless twenty-year-old Australian, Esther, in his Fleet Street office in London in 1951, he is certain he will find her insufferable; instead – within an hour – he is smitten.

Spanning the decades, and moving across continents, to cities: from the lively streets of London to the awe-inspiring lights of Jerusalem, from literary cocktail parties to the war-torn Lebanese-Israeli border, we watch Max and Essie move in and out of each other’s orbit – deaths, marriages, and careers – like planets drawn together by being in the same magnetic field, yet always, somehow, forced apart by another equal power.

As Max grows into a respected journalist, husband, and father, and Essie, an award-winning author and syndicated writer living in Jerusalem, his love for her never falters.

Esther is a wise, passionate, heartbreaking, and ultimately redemptive story of unbreakable bonds, and the many shapes of love.

“Readers with a taste for tragic romance should clear their calendars for an evening, grab a box of tissues and enjoy this haunting story of love . . .”
Publishers Weekly