Say to This Mountain (Shiloh Legacy) [Paperback]

Bodie Thoene (Author)

Book Description

Series: Shiloh Legacy | Publication Date: July 1993

The seemingly unmovable mountains in their lives were small compared to the yearnings in their hearts-

City-boy Davey Meyer, street-smart and gutsy, had this inner longing too belong to somebody-.Max Meyer, a city-boy grown up and a Wall Street regular, also wanted to belong.

Jefferson Canfield had been unjustly incarcerated for a decade. But his escape didn't mean freedom he didn't really belong anywhere until he came home to Shiloh-.Lily's husband had died not long after their baby was conceived. Could she ever feel she belonged to anyone again?-Willa-Mae and Hock Canfield had belonged to each other for nearly as long as they could remember. And for ten years they had made a life for themselves far away from Shiloh and the killing. Now it seemed to have found them once again.

Like his father before him, Ellis Warne belonged in the medical profession. But now he was required to do some things that made him wonder if he could remain a doctor-.Becky Warne's empty arms reflected her empty heart. A baby belonged there! Why couldn't Ellis have saved his own?-And two little boys who had a mother, who didn't really belong to anybody.

These characters and more fill the pages of Say to This Mountain with the stuff of life tragedy and laughter, pain and joy, the dramatic and the ordinary. And through it all over it all is the sense, the wonder, of faith that moves mountains.

From an extraordinary novelist comes the gripping continuation of The Shiloh Legacy!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bodie Thoene is a writer about whom John Wayne once said, "She has that rare kind of talent that captures the people and the times!"

Born in Bakersfield, California, to a family of Irish and Jewish heritage, the fiery little redhead claimed from an early age she wanted to be a writer. Bodie's goal seemed impossible, however, when midway through grade school it was discovered that she had dyslexia, a learning disability that made it difficult for her to read. Her mother refused to accept that this was a problem they couldn't overcome, and together they worked with a young teacher until at last Bodie could read at grade level and above.

"Both my parents instilled their can-do outlook on life. Reading opened the world to me. I began to write stories of my own."

By the young age of fourteen, Bodie had a job as a stringer reporter for The California Newspaper. "They paid me fifty cents an inch for one article a week. The most I ever made was twelve dollars, but I felt rich!"

Bodie continued her college education as a Journalism-Political Science major in San Jose, California. She covered the Bay-area political unrest of the Vietnam era as an associate for U.S. News and World Report. Her career as a journalist seemed assured, but she says, "I thought to myself that there has to be more to life than writing about riots and peace marches."

Bodie married Brock Thoene during their sophomore year in college. They settled in Waco, Texas, where Brock attended Baylor University. It was here that Bodie began to write fiction out of the stories she gleaned from old Texas cowboys. The birth of their first child did not stop her from writing. "I held her with one arm and typed with the other!"

Publication of The Fall Guy catapulted Bodie into national attention and acclaim. Shortly after that she went to work for John Wayne's Batjac Productions and ABC Television as a writer and researcher, working with the top writers in the motion picture industry. Among those who work with her, she is known as one of the finest character and action writers in the business. Her work is currently featured in American West, Saturday Evening Post, and Smithsonian magazine, as well as other national publications.

Bodie's interest in Israel, which culminated in THE ZION CHRONICLES, stems from her days as a student. In 1978 she spoke to John Wayne about her hope to one day write a novel about the exciting events surrounding the rebirth of Israel. He encouraged her with his reply: "That's one you ought to do. It's the story of the Jewish Alamo!"

With the publication of the first book in THE ZION CHRONICLES The Gates of Zion she was awarded the Gold Medallion Book Award by the ECPA. size : 5.4 x 8.3

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Bethany House Publishers (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556611919
• ISBN-13: 978-1556611919
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #915,880 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heartwarming Book, July 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Say to This Mountain (Shiloh Legacy) (Paperback)

Another great addition to the Shiloh Legacy Series. This book was especially fulfilling as it ties many of the characters together and also ties up some "loose ends" from the first two books.

There is just the right amount of humor to counteract the many serious issues dealt with in this book. Many of the chapters bring on laughter, while others bring on the tears.The only thing that I did not particularly enjoy was the "mob" aspect of the book. Yet, it was realistic to the history of New York and necessary to the plot. In addition, the New York City meets Shiloh aspect is one of the funniest things about this book.

The Thoene's characters are real and often not as predictible as many other historical fiction series. They are not perfect by any means, yet many are great examples of faith in adversity.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book by excellent authors, October 5, 2001

By 

K. Olgren (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Say to This Mountain (Shiloh Legacy) (Paperback)

I love books by the Thoenes, but any book from this series ranks right at the top of the list. *Say to this Mountain* is real. It deals with what was reality in America in 1930. Doctors forced to imagine illnesses in employees of a factory in order to keep their jobs. Black men arrested and losing their property to [...] sherriffs. A man and his son chased by a mafia member who desired nothing more than to execute them both.

I can imagine that some people might read those things and think that it sounds too sad to read for pleasure. Please don't assume that. There is so much beauty to the people and the stories that it is enjoyable reading.

Life can be good to live even when one goes through awful things. The same is true in the books that we read. Even though we may ache for the people in the stories, we love them. We live along with them.

This book, along with the other books in the series, is excellent, because it gets you to live right along side those in the books. You don't just learn about their lives. You participate in them in a very real sense.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So timely that it's terrifying, in a way, March 2, 2009

By 

Nina M. Osier (Randolph, ME USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Say to This Mountain (Shiloh Legacy) (Paperback)

The Great War is over, and the Roaring Twenties are at an end, too. Veterans Ellis Warne, Thomas Jefferson Canfield, Max Meyer, and Birch Tucker have done what veterans do, returning to their homes and working to build lives for themselves. Things have gone well enough for Dr. Warne, despite his lost leg. Or at least they have so far...which is about to change, in ways that may well cost Ellis a lot more than one leg. Max Meyer has just discovered that he's the father of a six-year-old son; and not only is the boy motherless, he's also the target of a mobster's assassin. That prompts Max to take the boy and leave New York City, where he's a successful reporter, for what he hopes will be safety in remote Shiloh, Arkansas. That's where Birch Tucker operates his family's ancestral farm, with wife Trudy (Max's cousin) and a "hired man" whom Birch claims has worked for him for the past ten years. Since Birch came home to Shiloh fairly recently, from the oil fields of Oklahoma, no one can prove otherwise. But before a tornado claims his life and cuts off Shiloh's easy access to the outside world by tearing up its railroad tracks, Birch's KKK-member cousin J.D. figures out that the "hired man" is an escaped convict nicknamed the Cannibal. J.D. wants the reward for that convict's recapture, so his death has come as a relief to Birch, Trudy, and Thomas Jefferson Canfield. Birch's unjustly imprisoned black war buddy, for whom he's named a son and whose bride is about to give birth as the book opens.

That's the setup, which I had to get straight with help from the authors because I came into this series ("Shiloh Legacy") at Book 3. It was worth the effort. Like the Thoenes' "Zion Covenant" series, this one is peopled by realistic characters and set solidly within its time and place. It is at once a hard book to put down, and a book I hated to finish; because I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I wished I could spend a longer time immersed.

That's high praise for a realistic story that I've managed to read just as the United States appears to be sinking into an economic situation reminiscent of the one my grandparents faced when they were a young couple with a family to raise. What even last year might have seemed to me like one more tale of their struggles during my mother's girlhood, this year reads far too much like today's headlines. Which is all the more reason to read it, of course! What better time to remind myself of the difference that faith makes?

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle" and 2005 EPPIE winner "Regs"