By GG Vandagriff

I simply cannot praise this book enough. H.B. Moore has done the nearly impossible: she has created a protagonist who is also the antagonist, and made us love and care about him. She has demonstrated with consummate skill how a man, raised in righteousness, can be drawn into wickedness by the belief that he knows a better way of doing things than his leaders. In my mind, this book is what the Victorians called “An Awful Warning” to anyone who thinks they have a better way of doing things than the way that is ordained of God.

Heather shows the “domino effect” of how one seemingly small sin can bring about our ruin. In the scriptures, this method of destruction by Satan is called “the flaxen cord” that becomes the chain that leads us down to hell.

This is the method described by Wormwood in the Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, told with one of the most well-known characters in the Book of Mormon.

I must confess that Alma the Younger has always been my favorite character. I identified with him when reading the Book of Mormon the first time, for I rejoiced that God could take such a sinner and make a mighty prophet of him. When my 60′s lifestyle boyfriend, David Vandagriff was investigating the church, I had him start reading the Book of Mormon with the dramatic appearance of an angel to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah. When another member of our family was casting about in darkness, this scripture passage was recreated in his own life, causing an experience that changed his life.

I expected this book to deal mostly with Alma’s years as a judge and preacher, however it doesn’t. It faces squarely the problem of Alma’s fall from grace. Heather explained to me how fast she was able to write it, and I have a theory that her hero was sitting on her shoulder whispering his story into her ear. It is that good and that believable.

The characters are real and richly developed. I can’t do better than to say this book is an exquisite read.

Alma The Younger

Covenant Communications

ISBN 978 1 60861 020 4