Not Without Mercy

Michael B. Rush: "I highly recommend Phill's book, Not Without Mercy. First, it is a story of faith and family that takes place during one of the world's darkest chapters - the Black Death. I believe that many of the challenges the Beorn family faced in this book will parallel the challenges our own families will endure in the coming days of trial. Secondly, Phill's story is unique in that it is based on numerous dreams and visitations wherein the characters of his book appeared at his bedside and told them their stories firsthand. Phill later learned that these characters were his own family members who lived during the mid-1300s in Bristol, England. The story they told is very timely for our day and the desolating pestilence that has been foretold. Furthermore, this story demonstrates that the veil is thin and that the hearts of the fathers have turned towards the children. I believe in the administration of angels. Who would have a more vested interest in administering to us than our own family? Not Without Mercy is a wonderful testament that family bonds do not end in the grave." Michael B. Rush, author of A Remnant Shall ReturnThe Black Death, the first volume in the NOT WITHOUT MERCY series, is the account of a family caught in the dawn of the world's most dangerous outbreak, the Black Plague of 1348 that took the lives of over twenty-five million people, over one-third of the population of Europe. The Black Plague caused moral malaise throughout the land that grew greed, selfishness, insecurity, fear, brutality, and wickedness. It caused the fearful to become faithless, and the faithful to become fearless. The Church grappled to explain it at the same time its clergy was either dying or hiding from its parishioners for fear of contamination and death. Bristol was one of the main shipping ports in England, and the home of William Beorn, a prosperous shipbuilder. William, his wife Jillian, and eldest son Michael were forced to take drastic measures to keep the family alive. Each day was a test of faith, family, love, courage, hope, and redemption. In the grim struggle people either thanked God for life, or blamed him for death, for some, it was the end, but for others, like the Beorn family, it was the beginning as they discovered that God had left them, Not Without Mercy.