REVIEW: Soul Harvest by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

I thought I would be done with the Left Behind books for awhile after reading the first three. I gave them back to my boss and his wife sent in the next four in the series. They are leaving for their new duty station next month so I guess I have some reading to do to get them all done before then. I was quite apprehensive reading Soul Harvest as Nicolae (#3 in the series) was the one I have liked the least so far. Thankfully, Soul Harvest managed to produce a much more interesting story.

Soul Harvest begins shortly after the great earthquake that rocks the earth and kills ¼ of the population. Both Buck and Rayford lose track of Chloe and Amanda (their wives) and the Tribulation Force (the group to which they all belong whose purpose is battling the anti-Christ, Nicolae), is thrown into disarray. Buck begins a frantic search for Chloe in the Chicago area where she was last seen as does Rayford for Amanda after he is told her plane went down in a river near Baghdad. Nicolae continues to deceive the population by making himself out to be the good guy who is working to rebuild roads and restore communications after the series of disasters. He even pushes people toward thinking he is divine by resurrecting his crony Leon Fortunato who tells everyone of his return from the dead. Meanwhile he tasks Rayford to track down his “fiancée” Hattie Durham who we learn in the last book is carrying the child of the anti-Christ. Nicolae wants Hattie and the baby gone and Rayford must find a way to save her. Also Rayford learns that his wife Amanda may be working for the other side. At this point in time the mark on the forehead signifying one is a believer appears and Tsion Ben-Judah continues to mentor those who are turning to Christ in preparation for the great battle against the Anti-Christ that is to come.

This book definitely picked up the pace from the last one and had more suspense too with the ”could there be a traitor among our midst?” angle. As I go along farther in this series I find it increasingly hard to believe that the characters on the side of evil see all these signs that occur exactly as is spelled out in the Book of Revelations but yet are still deceived by Nicolae. Also I can’t help but think that for all the travesties that are occurring on earth it is amazing how soon communications are restored and how airline travel is possible immediately afterwards and people are still travelling by . I think back on Hurricane Katrina and how chaotic things were in just that one area of our country and I find it a little hard to believe that any semblance of order could be restored in such a short amount of time. Other than those few things that bugged me I think this book did a good job of moving the story on and I’m actually looking forward to continuing on and reading book 5.



If the FTC is wondering: This book was loaned to me by a coworker