Plot twists and sensual surprises are deftly interwoven in this Lambda Award-nominated debut from erotic romance author, Rosalind Chase.

It's been twenty-five years since the Overflow flooded Southern Europe, drowning Rome, Vienna and Istanbul, and turning Paris into a major port. At the Dead Sea, the earth has opened up to reveal a strange violet salt to which the world has become addicted, and a colony has been established by the mysterious Consortium of Seventy-Five to control the supply. Run by murderers, fugitives and liars, the Colony is a haven to those fleeing Europe - especially the privileged "Purple Stars". But when the governor of the Colony dies suddenly and mysteriously, the six officials turn on each other, sparking a terrifying chain of events which threatens the very existence of the Colony. In Paris, Phileas Book, the greatest crossword compiler of his age and creator of the Epistleword, is recruited by the sinister Consortium. Presented with the epistolary confessions of the six, he is ordered to sift truth from lies to find out who killed the unpopular Governor Bera. But as Phileas starts to unravel the mystery, he begins to realise that these are no ordinary letters and that nothing less than the course of human history is at stake.What Lot's Wife Saw is an astonishing and beautifully written novel about the fear, sin and guilt that lurks in the dark corridors of the human conscience. It is a story on an epic scale about betrayal, sacrifice and unconditional love, and a darkly humorous parable recalling the Biblical tales of God's terrible rage and the fate that befell those who suffered it. But, above all, it is an enthralling vision of a nightmarish world which only the power of humanity can change.

Can looking at disaster and mass death destroy us? Forgetting Lot’s Wife provides a theory and a fragmentary history of destructive spectatorship in the twentieth century. Its subject is the notion that the sight of historical catastrophe can destroy the spectator. The fragments of this history all lead back to the story of Lot’s wife: looking back at the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, she turns into a pillar of salt. This biblical story of punishment and transformation, a nexus of sexuality, sight, and cities, becomes the template for the modern fear that looking back at disaster might petrify the spectator. Although rarely articulated directly, this idea remains powerful in our culture. This book traces some of its aesthetic, theoretical, and ethical consequences. Harries traces the figure of Lot’s wife across media. In extended engagements with examples from twentieth-century theater, film, and painting, he focuses on the theatrical theory of Antonin Artaud, a series of American films, and paintings by Anselm Kiefer. These examples all return to the story of Lot’s wife as a way to think about modern predicaments of the spectator. On the one hand, the sometimes veiled figure of Lot’s wife allows these artists to picture the desire to destroy the spectator; on the other, she stands as a sign of the potential danger to the spectator. These works, that is, enact critiques of the very desire that inspires them. The book closes with an extended meditation on September 11, criticizing the notion that we should have been destroyed by witnessing the events of that day.

“Her knowledge of the Bible is evident and her creativity shines through as she weaves nine thoughtful and layered accounts of distant, complicated times.” —Publisher's Weekly “Reminiscent of Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. . . . These beautifully written stories feel like meeting Eve, Lot’s wife, and many other compelling characters for the first time.” —LAUREL CORONA, author of The Mapmaker’s Daughter and The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice “Stunning.” —MOLLY ANTOPOL, author of The UnAmericans “Gorgeous and captivating.” —DARA HORN, author of A Guide for the Perplexed and The World to Come “Marvelous.” —MICHELLE HUNEVEN, author of Off Course and Blame “What struck me most about these stories is their clear, assured confidence—as if Michal Lemberger had pulled apart some of the lines in the old story, spied a new story tucked in there way off in a corner, shimmied in a fishhook and pulled it out.” —AIMEE BENDER, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake “Lemberger liberates the voices that are trapped beneath the [biblical] text . . . with artistry and erudition.” —RABBI DAVID WOLPE, Rabbi of Sinai Temple, Los Angeles and author of Why Faith Matters Eve considers motherhood. Miriam tends Moses. Lot’s wife looks back. Vividly reimagined with startling contemporary clarity, Michal Lemberger’s debut collection of short stories gives voice to silent, oft-marginalized biblical women: their ambitions, their love for their children, their values, their tremendous struggles and challenges. Informed by Lemberger’s deep knowledge of the Bible, each of these nine stories story recasts a biblical saga from the perspective of a pivotal woman. Michal Lemberger’s nonfiction and journalism have appeared in Slate, Salon, Tablet, and other publications, and her poetry has been published in a number of print and online journals. A story from After Abel, her first collection of fiction, was featured in Lilith Magazine. Lemberger holds an MA and PhD in English from UCLA and a BA in English and religion from Barnard College. She has taught the Hebrew Bible as Literature at UCLA and the American Jewish University. She was born and raised in New York and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.

The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978. This highly accurate and smooth-reading version of the Bible in modern English has the largest library of printed and electronic support material of any modern translation.