Elena Tucker

Review: Vessel of Hope by Elena Tucker.

This is the third book of the Time Pieces Trilogy. After reading all three I feel like they all were equal in rating. I enjoyed them all, the book was well written and I followed the main characters through all three books and found them intriguing. Elena Tucker provides vessels filled with soul, imagination and era experiences. Instead of the traditional Christianity flow of words she pursued humanity’s continuation of a spiritual quest with past idealistic experiences and an archaeologist imaginary vision who sifts through the ruins of history.

Tucker profiles a century of unthinkable daily existence at a time when issues were strict and traditional. The substance of life was no different than it is today in Israel. As Lem Fort, an archaeologist excavates three sites handling ancient coins, vessels, and shard pieces he visualizes a connection with some long forgotten individual and the artifacts discovered as pieces of time. The trilogy is an insightful story with two connected characters, both ancient and modern, searching for happiness and spiritual meaning in the world around them.… (mehr)

Review: Vessel Of Strength by Elena Tucker.

This is the second book in the Time Pieces Trilogy. I did read the first book but after reading this book I think they could be read individually. The Main theme is Archaeology expeditions in Israel and religion, spirituality and history in the midst throughout the book. Tucker’s writing skills are great and her characters are strong and hold their own individuality which makes the story more interesting.

Laden is Jewish and is considered a first century craftsman and is an expert specialist in exotic Roman marble. He has a wife who is seven months pregnant and a two year old boy he adores. His family lives with him in the area of the archaeology site but his wife wants to live in an urban area among other people. He always felt bad when he went to the site because his wife was unhappy. Then one day his world fell apart ….

There was also an archaeologist, Lem Fort working at the same site who was haunted by the loss of his infant daughter and his girlfriend who was also a few months pregnant worked beside him and lived at the site with him in a tent. Lem was struggling with emotions, life itself just felt incomplete. Yet the days in his life was fulfilled as he was excavating three sites handling every coin, vessel, and shard as his last connection with some long forgotten artifacts as pieces of time.

Throughout the story the author created a spiritual aura around these two men. Ladan eventually found his own destiny in life in an unexpected place. Lem Fort also came to terms with his future as an accomplished archaeologist when this expedition was completed….… (mehr)

Review: Vessel of Fire by Elena Tucker.

Elena Tucker’s first book of her Time Pieces Trilogy which I thought was well written with enjoyable characters. She participated in an archaeological excavation about thirty years ago with her husband. When writing her story she did have some knowledge about archaeology and created an interesting story. This is a story of ancient and current characters who struggle with shared cultures united by the space of time. As you read you’ll go back and forth between the past and the present with interest and be amazed at the end how the two stories are related.

Vessel of Fire describes life centuries ago, the year C.E. 131, and a small village in the Holy Land near the Dead Sea during one of Judaism’s bravest and riskiest revolts against Rome. This is where fifth teen year old Tamar helped her father over the years as a potter apprentice. Her father was a wise man and when the Roman soldiers were headed to his village he placed all his coins in a vessel and buried it deep under his outdoor kiln oven and left it there. His family and the village people took some essential, packed up and travel on foot to mountains far away to hide in the caves. The higher they went the harder it was for the Romans to get to them. They weren’t there long when Tamar sneaked out during the night to head back to their village and hid in a cave she found before they left that no one knew about. Sometimes she and her family did not get along so she would go to that cave for tranquility. There are more scenes of violence and death of the ancient village people and how their story ended embedded throughout the book.

In this same area century’s later Archaeologist, Dr. Lem Fort begins excavating the ruins of ancient Beit Sha’al where he digs, literally into the past life of Tamar and her family. They were excavating in three locations in that area. Elena Tucker did a great job describing the procedures of the archaeologists and there findings. I was fascinated with the pottery and hand made tools they found and amazed how some of the items were in good shape after so many years buried in the dry soil of the land. Some of these items told a good amount of ancient history of the past people and cultures.… (mehr)