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by Patty Sleem (Author)
This second novel by Patty Sleem explores issues related to career change, sexual harassment of women in the ministry, death, and male/female relationships. With chapters set in Jamaica and Boston as well as the deep South, the book contains a modern interpretation of the Old Testament Book of Amos and examines Paul's view toward women within a fast-paced fictional format that looks at a modern woman struggling to make a career in ministry in the 20th century. Patty Sleem's Back In Time was also published in large print hardcover by Simon & Schuster's Thorndike Press. When Maggie Dillitz trades in her Harvard MBA and lucrative career to pursue a call to ministry, she expects relief from the competitive pressures of business and a life of satisfying service to her God and mankind. Instead, she discovers that many people are not ready to accept a female minister, and she develops tangled new relationships which involve her in a shocking tale of lust, intrigue...murder. What Maggie encounters after graduating from divinity school are the many subtle and not-so-subtle forms of discrimination against women in ministry, especially against women in pulpit ministries. Formerly a single parent now remarried to a former classmate with whom she is raising three children, Maggie finds her life turned upside down when a war in the Middle East claims the services of many of the senior ministers in the United Methodist Church. Maggie finds herself assigned on an interim basis to a large church in the south, and she enjoys the challenge of preaching in the modern church. After preaching a sermon on the book of Amos, the Prophet of Doom and Gloom" who brought a message of correction from God to the Israelites 27 centuries ago, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a hostile hornet's nest with her career on the line. During a mission project in Jamaica, Maggie must deal with the trauma of sexual discrimination in new forms. At the end of the book, Maggie preaches a funeral service for a friend who died at age forty of cancer. Here's a review from the prestigious Library Journal: "Maggie Dillitz has turned her back on a lucrative business career in order to pursue a call to the ministry. To her dismay, she soon discovers that many people are not ready to accept a female minister. Receiving a post only because of sudden and unexpected vacancies, Maggie soon alienates her parishioners. Sent to Jamaica in a last-ditch effort to save her career, Maggie is sexually attacked by a senior minister. When that minister is murdered after her return to the States, Maggie quickly becomes a chief suspect. Sleem provides an engrossing look at the discrimination faced by female ministers. Patrons will want a follow-up." - Library Journal "The principal character is a female Methodist minister who faces all the obstacles that groundbreaking pioneers always do. Well told and full of non-nonsense wisdom, this is the beginning of what surely will be a series of stories based on the trials and triumphs of Rev. Dillitz." -- Fayetteville Observer-Times "Lots of contemporary issues in a plot that pulls readers through the pages. Glass ceilings in the ministry, sexual harassment from the least likely corner, homicides no less surprising. Sleem develops an attractive character in Maggie Dillitz, a Harvard Business School grad who gives up the rat race after 15 years to enter the ministry. Less frantic? In her dreams. Intriguing exploration of current Judeo-Christian issues." -- The Book Reader The sequel to Back In Time will be published in 2010.
