KARP (VOL I)

Other than the Prologue, which has been deliberately paused at the part of the supernatural intervention, the remaining chapters are written to introduce Karp and his accompanying characters.

Most of the poignant life stories we review have either been based upon my own life experiences, testimonies I've read and heard, or heart-rending situations that have impacted me sufficiently to make me want to shout out and echo the words of so many philosophers before me through the ages, "those who cannot learn from history, are doomed to repeat it."

As we meet each character and they open their lives to examination, we see how similar we all really are. How the same grasping passions that were at work in our ancestors in the first century - greed, pride, fear, doubt and even self-loathing, run eternally and consistently through us all within the twenty-first. Even though we view life through a harsh unbending prism of reality because the light and hope of God burns anew and ever faithful towards his children who are locked within their own personal struggles.

In the opening chapters, we see how Karp's family perished through an outbreak of Cholera and how, in his depressive state, he was kidnapped, brutally abused, and forced into slavery, yet divinely protected and ultimately loved and mothered through the rekindled kindness of a lonely old spinster, who we find is none other than a seventy-year-old, depressed, and companionless, Mary Magdalene.

We also meet several other predominant characters who have already enjoyed a footnote in Christian lore and world mythology. These characters are brought back into the light within the pages of the book, and as we investigate their lives, I believe that we, too, will be challenged by their choices.

From helping a King to rescue a kidnapped princess and working covertly with the occupying Roman forces to rid the islands of evil marauding pirates to then dealing with the terrible demonic powers at the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, Karp is always at the forefront of adventurous events and spurs us all on ever to choose the greater paths of hope and faith.