Good writing, for me, makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Robert Ellis has managed to do both in his bold, courageous novel, COURAGE TO LOVE. Setting a star crossed romance in the turmoil and terror of present day Israel, the author spins a taut, suspenseful tale that builds to an unexpected and illuminating climax. I was moved and informed by this book. It gives one hope. And in today’s world, we need more of such nourishment.
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A beautifully written story of a love and hope, August 6, 2010
By Laura S Miller – See all my reviews
This review is from: Courage to Love (Perfect Paperback)
A new exploration of the middle-eastern condition that takes place in a hospital and in two families of different backgrounds: it is the thermometer for the growing madness of the present Jewish-Palestinian conflict, but the perspective is not political, but human. Courage and freedom, fight and rights, alliances and love, are all protagonists of a sweet story that succeeds in giving hope and a message of peace.

The evolution of the Jewish-Palestinian conflict passes through a Hospital, much differently than from the journalistic articles which we are accustomed to (in which only negative news, such as attacks, slaughters, violence of every type are mentioned). The idea of the writer is to show to the reader how to go beyond what we hear in the news and see that above all we belong to the same race and that our feelings are universal. He succeeds in his attempt using old-fashioned single words: love, honesty and truth. They emerge strong, but not overbearing, grabbing the reader’s attention, so that the reader is forced to follow with rapture this beautifully written story of a love.
A story without pretense, linear, with beautiful characters that you will fall in love with.

Dramatic and compelling, August 5, 2010
By Rupert Nadeau – See all my reviews
This review is from: Courage to Love (Audible Audio Edition)
This is a very dramatic and compelling reading of Courage to Love. You’re at once transported to the middle east with an international cast of characters, for this modern day Romeo and Juliet love story. The reader does a fine job with the varied emotions of the book. It has a thrilling edge-of-your-seat final chapter. Very engaging.
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Comment

Courage to Love was written to make enemies friends. I am not idiotic enough to believe one love story can solve world problems – except for the fact that it solved this author’s problems with the world. The sleeping knowledge in this book needs to be told to each new generation to free them to make up their own minds about life. As I listened to the climax of the recording of the Courage to Love audio book, I listened to a frightened Arab teenager, her stern iman father, a stalwart American boy and his South Carolina Jewish parents, a Scottish Franciscan friar, an Egyptian doctor, both a Jordanian and an Irish nurse, and a Palestinian army general. I heard a symphony – composed of the truths of all the people around the world who had contributed to this book. Truth after truth. No arguments. No discords. Only truths that rang as bells. Throughout my life, my soul has seemed to record and mourn the numbers of soldiers and innocents who were killed in the wars of my time, from the Italian bombardment of Ethiopia and Spain in 1935-36, through the invasions of China, Czechoslovakia, WWII and the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq.
To stop this slaughter, my soul extends to the world this desert rose. The author