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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Dr Leroy Lowe’s The Black Stone and the Light is set in Galilee under Roman occupation, where Mary of Magdala grows up in a fishing village beside the Sea of Galilee. Her older brother Reuben, who teaches her to read the Law, carves a small olive wood bird as a treasured sign that someone hears her. When Roman soldiers seize Reuben for execution, what Mary sees follows her into adulthood through memories that her neighbors interpret as a curse. Mary supports her mother by trading fish in Magdala, yet each sale reveals the distance her neighbors keep. News of Jesus, a teacher from Nazareth known for healing people, brings Mary to the lakeshore, where his approach offers a future beyond the world chosen for her.
Dr Leroy Lowe’s The Black Stone and the Light gives Mary of Magdala a distinctive first-person voice, making biblical history feel human. Lowe does a beautiful job with sensory memory, using ordinary physical details to show how the past remains active within a life. The recurring sound of wood striking wood gives the title an imaginative unity that reaches across Mary’s experience. The period detail is immersive and well researched. Sabbath observance appears through a town stopping work as evening arrives. Jerusalem before Passover emerges through crowded lodgings as pilgrims enter the city for the feast. Lowe writes faith as a daily reality expressed through the language people use among themselves, in dialogue that comes across as authentic but understandable. The result is an intelligently written retelling of a famed woman we barely know. This is her story, in her own words, and readers who enjoy historical fiction that stands beside the likes of Tracy Chevalier and Michelle Moran will adore this.
