Here’s a book series that might float your boat: H.B. Moore’s Out of Jerusalem. It takes Nephi from your assigned-daily-scripture-reading pile and places him on your fun-time-reading pile.

I tried the first volume, Of Goodly Parents. Moore’s thorough research makes Nephi and his scripture family come alive. We see him sweating on an ordinary workday in the vineyards. “His hands and feet were stained with the rich, purple juices from the grapes.” We see big brothers Laman and Lemuel taking longer work breaks than everybody else on the crew, the laggards. We meet extra siblings. We hear the sounds of the marketplace and see where they hide the family treasures. We experience, vaguely, the dramatic cliffs and valleys of the Arabian peninsula, the dust storms of the desert, the hunger of travelers when Nephi’s bow breaks.

We also watch a budding romance between Nephi and Isaabel, the cute little daughter of Ishmael who’s got a crush on him.

If you want suspense, well, that’s a weak spot in this volume. Readers can pretty much guess who marries who and how those laggard brothers will react when Dad tells the family who won’t eat the fruit in his dream.

Books like Moore’s (in some editions, she’s “Heather B. Moore”) advanced Mormon fiction a few miles beyond the Anita Stansfield novel. Since its 2011 publication, we’ve grown still more. But have we gotten the knack of portraying faith and prayer and blessings and visions in a way that keeps our stories as real and compelling as that sweaty, wine-stained Nephi that appears in Moore’s first pages? I’d take liberties the author didn’t take. My prophet/patriarch wouldn’t jump into Elizabethan English every time he had a vision. My prophet’s wife would complain more. Since we’re traipsing through the desert and having sandstorms and keeping things real, let’s give her more to do than choking back sobs or grasping her husband’s arm in shock.

Some scenes in Goodly Parents feel like Moore is setting the stage for later books in the series.

I congratulate Moore on what she accomplished. I would like to dig into her notes (included in the book). But given the lack of tension in the story, I don’t plan to read the next volume any time soon.

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