Njedeh Anthony, The Seventh King

The book stretches both eastern and western religious practices to intrigue us with a plot that remarkable. About the protagonists journey into a world we don't know about. I really like the factual correlations in the book, it actually pushes you to debate the point the author is trying to give.

The Seventh King

Njedeh Anthony

NVL Publishing, 2007

ISBN: 9781604616644

She taught math with her German iron maiden will at a prestigious Austrian school. Her male students hated her with a passion and nine of them raped her. The principal offered her a three year financial settlement that she angrily rejected. The parents demanded she abort the child, but she refused as he will be the instrument of her revenge against these elitists. When he is born, the parents realize their first grandchild is physically perfect and they want to raise him though none of them know whose sperm entered the egg. She refused. Instead after teaching him to hate, she sold him. She is Hagar and he is Hades.

Born in hate, raised in hate, sold in hate; Hades grows up hating his 'parents' especially the woman who discarded him. However he begins to realize besides his animosity and rage, he has powers that no one else he knows possesses. He also has strange visions that encourage him to seek his true identity to understand his existence; to do this he travels the globe studying various religions and secret sects and societies as he believes he needs to know the answer to Revelations 17:10: ?There are also Seven Kings. Five have fallen, one is and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time?.

THE SEVENTH KING is an insightful allegorical thriller filled with twists especially late in Hades' journey. Hades is a modern Everyman yet is much more and much less. His search for THE SEVENTH KING is exciting and well written. Yet his quest also serves as a parable for Everyman seeks justification for their existence and solace for what makes them human; the power of free will to choose or not to choose that is the question Hades and Everyman must ultimately answer.

Harriet Klausner