Finally Abram spoke. "I'm glad we've never quarreled before," he said. "Because you're a terrifying opponent in a war of words."

So he was going to ignore what she had said, and accuse her of simply bandying words. Despair sent tears from her eyes again. She turned her face away from him so he couldn't see.

He softened. "I should at least have asked for your side of things."

"I have no side of things," said Sarai. "I only want to be left alone while you and Hagar have your baby and go on with your lives."

In Sarah, author Orson Scott Card uses his fertile imagination and uncanny insight into human nature to flesh out a unique woman—one who is beautiful, tough, smart, and resourceful in an era when women get short shrift in life as well as in the historical record. Sarah takes on vivid reality as a woman desirable to kings, a devoted wife, and a faithful follower of the God of Abraham, chosen to experience an incomparable miracle.

Set in the splendor and excess of Egypt and the starkly beautiful desert landscapes of the Sinai peninsula, Sarah is an altogether believable and provocative drama. This first novel in a trilogy on the women of Genesis illuminates the hardships and the triumphs of a woman destined for greatness.

Visit Orson Scott Card's Web site.

ISBN 13: 978-1-57008-994-7; Imprint: Shadow Mountain; On Sale: October 2000; Format: Hardcover; Pages: 400; $22.95; Ages: 12 and Up