Izevel, Queen of darkness

The Dark Chapters series tell three of the darker stories from the Bible.

The three books in the series, The Egyptian Nightmare (the story of Pharaoh), Izevel, Queen of Darkness (the story of Jezebel) and The Sky Will Fall (the story of Samson), focus on the story of one character from the Bible and see how their life compares to how God wants us to live.

They also examine what happens as a consequence of them not following God's plan for their lives. The text does not sensationalise the horrific aspects of each story for entertainment's sake, and therefore trivialise what it has to say.

On the contrary, each retold account uses the more fantastic and gruesome episodes of each character's story to grip the reader and draw them into assessing why these events take place. The reader is asked throughout the books to consider questions about the nature of God, how we should live as Christians, what value we place on things of this world - power, wealth, influence or popularity - and what God values.

Daughter of King Ethbaal of Tyre, Izevel (Jezebel) thinks she should be important, the apple of her father's eye, but she is not. Farmed out as a political pawn to be married to the son of the king of neighbouring Israel, she is banished from her father's presence.

With only her priestess for company, she starts to try to prove to her father that she would be a great queen.

Exerting more and more influence over her husband, Ahab, she begins to promote the worship of Baal and Astarte, gradually killing off the priests and prophets of Israel's God, Adonai. But when she meets Elijah, she becomes more and more obsessed with breaking the devotion to Adonai.

Outraged at her prophets' defeat and subsequent massacre at Carmel, she steps up her ambitions.

Where will her campaign take her? Through the relationship between Izevel and Elijah, and later Elisha, the reader explores the question of following the Lord and how idols of all kinds can pull people away from God.

We see the pain of Elijah at God's people's stubbornness and sin in rejecting the ways they were taught by their ancestors.

Who is there left to tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord?The author uses the Bible text and historical evidence of Baal worship to create this fascinating and challenging account of how worldly influences can take hold and drag people from following the word of the Lord.

However, there is a message of hope, as Izevel ultimately does not succeed.