From Sun to Sun

From Sun to Sun presents two parallel stories separated by twenty-five centuries: The first, set in modern New York City, features a hardworking, smart-mouthed Latina investigator, Felicity Ortega Pérez, as she hunts for a missing person who holds the clue to an ancient mystery. Little does she realize how deep the criminality goes and what she will learn about her own hidden past.

The ancient story is a radical revision of the biblical Book of Ruth: When her husband dies under strange circumstances, Ruth must join the exiles returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple in order to secure a future for herself and her grieving mother-in-law, Naomi. Unfortunately, the returning exiles include religious leaders who plan to "purify" the land by expelling all the foreign women.

From Sun to Sun is a tale of love, devotion, and sacrifice depicting the challenges facing two determined women as they confront ignorance, hatred, and indifference in their pursuit of justice—a seemingly endless struggle in a time of social upheaval, fluid identities, and diverse cross-cultural complexities. This novel is about who gets to decide who’s one of us and who’s a foreigner, and what it takes to prove you belong.

Praise

“No one blends the ancient with the current as deftly as Wishnia. His From Sun to Sun is an entertaining, thought provoking exploration of women struggling to overcome against great odds.”
—Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times bestselling author of Sleepless City

"By turns evocative, provocative, lyrical, visceral, tender, and brutal—but always engaging and fascinating—From Sun to Sun is a tour de force by a master story-teller at the top of his form. In recounting the respective quests of two ethnic minority women, Wishnia provides a story from radically different perspectives that nevertheless makes a powerful case for the power of humanity and courage in the face of bigotry and the shameless abuse of power. Lots of times, a good book is praised because the reader can’t put it down in the thrall of its relentless pace. But this book, which is no less relentless, will cause the reader to periodically stop and think and feel, savoring not only the thrilling ride, but also its deep wisdom.”
—James Lincoln Warren, author of the Black Orchid Novella Award-winning “Inner Fire”

“In From Sun to Sun, author Kenneth Wishnia nimbly vaults across time and space to create a lively correlation between two fierce young women, Ruth and Felicity, living millennia apart in disparate social hierarchies. It’s a story of defiance and accommodation, an immigrant’s story of biblical Ruth and her dizygotic twin Felicity, native born but treated as an outsider, whose worth is constantly judged and evaluated by men. It’s a crime story, plus it’s a feminist story of women forced into servility by custom and circumstance: Ruth by widowhood and Felicity by a freelance gig with a corrupt company dominated by misogynist men. Last but never least, it’s a love story. Woven throughout is a searing social critique, filled with exposés of New York’s building codes, the Persian conquest, scholarly debates, and tribal squabbles during the Iron Age. It's a big accomplishment to hold so many reins at once and guide the beast to the finish line, but Wishnia delivers with humor and aplomb on how two strong young women prevail and survive, then and now.”
—Summer Brenner, author of Nearly Nowhere, I-5, and Dust: A Memoir

Praise for Kenneth Wishnia's previous works

“Packed with enough mayhem and atmosphere for two novels.” 
—Booklist

“Wishnia cuts a different path with his stories and novels, choosing subjects, settings, and characters of a sort the reader is unlikely to encounter in the mainstream of mystery and crime fiction. His fine sensibility and skillful prose will appeal to discriminating readers.”
—Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

“Sharp and sexy. . . . Hilarious and exciting. . . . [Wishnia] has a perfect ear for female urban angst.”
—Chicago Tribune

“Riveting circumstances, a strongly focused plot, and ably described settings make this essential reading.”
—Library Journal

“Wishnia’s brand of gritty surrealism jolts the reader with startling images and jarring contrasts. [He] evokes a country and a culture vividly and unforgettably.“
—Publishers Weekly

“Enormously engaging. It’s as if Wishnia were attempting to rescue the thriller from the bloat and preposterousness of Ludlumization in order to return it to its more Graham Greene-like roots in a recognizably mean real world—just as Chandler and Hammett rescued detective fiction from drawing-room gentility and yanked it down to the mean streets that had always been its natural habitat.“
—Washington Post

Kenneth Wishnia’s novels include 23 Shades of Black, which was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel and an Anthony for Best Paperback Original; Soft Money, a Library Journal Best Mystery of the Year; and Red House, a Washington Post Book World “Rave” Book of the Year. His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Queens Noir, Long Island Noir, Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail, and elsewhere. He edited the Anthony Award–nominated anthology Jewish Noir and coedited Jewish Noir II with Chantelle Aimée Osman. He teaches writing, literature, and other deviant forms of thought at Suffolk Community College on Long Island.

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