What do you think?
Rate this book
Falling Rain
Loosely based on the extra-biblical account known as The Book of Enoch, Falling Rain explores the possible events surrounding antediluvian culture. In ancient times, before the great flood, a young girl named Ren finds herself in a world of bloodthirsty creatures determined to conquer all creation. Half angelic and half human, these evil but highly developed warriors ravage humankind, nearly driving it to extinction. Ren, her mother Marah, and friend Tamara, are chosen by God to play a pivotal part in restoring peace to the earth. But when Ren discovers she too is one of the despised Halfling race, she wrestles with guilt and self-doubt, and embarks on a relationship with her angelic father whom she both loves and hates. Falling Rain is a story of three women who overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, learn to accept forgiveness, and muster the courage they need to become the unlikely heroes they were destined to be. Though all seems lost, they finally achieve redemption in an unexpected but God-ordained turn of events.
194 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2006
1 person is currently reading
4 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 30, 2017
First-time author Laurel June Thompson is a Bluefield area resident and an acquaintance of my wife. The latter isn't really into this type of literature; but, taking a chance that it might be something I'd like, gifted me with a copy last Christmas. It appears that I'll be the first person to review it here on Goodreads, so I wish that I could, in good conscience, rate it more highly.
Noah's flood, recorded in the first book of the Bible (Genesis), is a subject fraught with disagreements. Many people consider it mythical. "Conservative" Christians such as myself, as well as many Orthodox Jews and Moslems, regard it as historical; but there are differences of opinion as to whether it was a worldwide cataclysm (a view that usually goes with "young earth" creationism, the idea that the seven "days" of creation in Genesis 1 are literally 24-hour days and that the earth is only a few thousand years old) or a cataclysm localized in the Mesopotamian plain. (The latter is the view that I hold; for a detailed defense of that view, and explanation of the issues involved, see The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis by Hugh Ross.) It also took place in a time before written history (the Hebrew and Sumerian accounts of it were written well after the events) and is shrouded in all the obscurity that entails --archaeology only provides limited information about the antediluvian world.
Thompson here takes on the task of imaginatively reconstructing the background of the Flood, over a period of some 73 years. Her three and 1/2 page Author's Note indicates that she did a fair amount of research for the novel, but unlike some authors, she regrettably doesn't identify her sources, except for the inter-testamental Book of Enoch, which she relied on pretty heavily. This furnished the idea that the "Nephilim" of Genesis 6:4 are to be understood as the hybrid offspring of human women mating with fallen angels (a view that Ross actually seems to lean towards, although it's not the majority opinion of modern evangelical scholars)., as well as providing names for characters, the idea of Dudael as a place in the bowels of the earth for imprisoning fallen angels, etc. (To be fair, she does acknowledge that modern scholars consider the legitimacy of this source "questionable" --which is a charitable characterization; NO serious scholar believes it was actually written by Enoch, nor that it has any value as a primary source for the antediluvian period.) She clearly draws on the beliefs of "young earth" creationism and the idea of a universal flood for elements of her picture. Huge flying reptiles and "dragons" (which from her description are clearly dinosaurs) are thought here to be contemporary with humans, and we have mammoths and saber-toothed tigers as passengers on the Ark, while her map of the antediluvian world shows the present site of the Mediterranean Sea as a vast plain. (The Author's Note claims that, "It is an archaeological fact that the ruins of at least two hundred cities have been discovered beneath the Mediterranean Sea," but I'm fairly well read in archaeology and have never encountered any such information.) Finally, she gets the idea of the tzohar, a luminous gemstone containing the "primordial light of creation" (whatever that might be?!) passed down from Adam to Noah and used to light the interior of the Ark, from Jewish rabbinical tradition, the reliability of which is very dubious.
Given all of these factors, plus the idea that in antediluvian times fallen angels --and humans or half-humans who were versed in it-- could wield angelic magic which actually worked (and which plays a major role in the plotting here), I've chosen to classify this as fantasy rather than historical fiction. Like Robert E. Howard (though they're in many other respects very different writers), though she nominally sets her tale in very ancient times on this world, functionally it's for all practical purposes a fantasy world. The attempt to connect it with actual history, though, made it hard to suspend disbelief. Thompson also falls into several of the traps that tend to beset amateur writers: a temptation to tell rather than show, shallow character development, and a use of big or obscure words (sometimes used incorrectly) in an attempt to impress the reader rather than to communicate. (English has a rich vocabulary, and it's okay to use big or unusual words when they're needed to do a job --but not for their own sake.) Blocs of chapters narrated in the third person alternate erratically with first-person chapters narrated by various characters; but there seems to be no artistic reasons for the shifts of person. (The epilogue is an exception; the choice of first-person narrator there makes excellent sense.) Dialogue and first person narration often sound stilted (Ren and Tamara, in particular, don't sound like 11-year-old children at the times when that's what they're supposed to be). The world-building is mediocre. Finally, a seven-year gap in the action, inserted unexpectedly in the middle of a chapter, kills the forward momentum and sense of expectancy at this point in the tale. (It would have been okay inserted between chapters, and maybe with the Table of Contents divided into a Part I and Part II.)
It's fair to be said that there are some positives here, though, and I did finish the book (and gave it two stars rather than one, which says something). The author generates enough actual suspense in several places that (even knowing the basic historical outline) I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen to particular characters. I liked it that, despite the patriarchial nature of their society, our focus here is on three strong female characters with plenty of agency. Some readers might have a problem with relationships that could be characterized as "insta-love," but under the cultural and psychological circumstances of these particular characters in their situation, I found this aspect perfectly credible. There's also a lively awareness here of the fact that, as the 19th-century hymn declares, "There's a wideness in God's mercy," and I found that a rewarding message. (Some more censorious evangelicals might consider Thompson's view of God's mercy too wide --but I'm not one of these.) Some of her historical speculations come across as plausible and even astute (such as the possible identity of Tubal-Cain's sister Naamah in Genesis 4:22, a rare --and unexplained, in the text-- mention of a woman in a male-oriented culture).
There's now a sequel to this novel, Split Tongue, which I'm guessing deals with the Tower of Babel. However, I don't personally plan to add that one to my to-read shelf.
Noah's flood, recorded in the first book of the Bible (Genesis), is a subject fraught with disagreements. Many people consider it mythical. "Conservative" Christians such as myself, as well as many Orthodox Jews and Moslems, regard it as historical; but there are differences of opinion as to whether it was a worldwide cataclysm (a view that usually goes with "young earth" creationism, the idea that the seven "days" of creation in Genesis 1 are literally 24-hour days and that the earth is only a few thousand years old) or a cataclysm localized in the Mesopotamian plain. (The latter is the view that I hold; for a detailed defense of that view, and explanation of the issues involved, see The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis by Hugh Ross.) It also took place in a time before written history (the Hebrew and Sumerian accounts of it were written well after the events) and is shrouded in all the obscurity that entails --archaeology only provides limited information about the antediluvian world.
Thompson here takes on the task of imaginatively reconstructing the background of the Flood, over a period of some 73 years. Her three and 1/2 page Author's Note indicates that she did a fair amount of research for the novel, but unlike some authors, she regrettably doesn't identify her sources, except for the inter-testamental Book of Enoch, which she relied on pretty heavily. This furnished the idea that the "Nephilim" of Genesis 6:4 are to be understood as the hybrid offspring of human women mating with fallen angels (a view that Ross actually seems to lean towards, although it's not the majority opinion of modern evangelical scholars)., as well as providing names for characters, the idea of Dudael as a place in the bowels of the earth for imprisoning fallen angels, etc. (To be fair, she does acknowledge that modern scholars consider the legitimacy of this source "questionable" --which is a charitable characterization; NO serious scholar believes it was actually written by Enoch, nor that it has any value as a primary source for the antediluvian period.) She clearly draws on the beliefs of "young earth" creationism and the idea of a universal flood for elements of her picture. Huge flying reptiles and "dragons" (which from her description are clearly dinosaurs) are thought here to be contemporary with humans, and we have mammoths and saber-toothed tigers as passengers on the Ark, while her map of the antediluvian world shows the present site of the Mediterranean Sea as a vast plain. (The Author's Note claims that, "It is an archaeological fact that the ruins of at least two hundred cities have been discovered beneath the Mediterranean Sea," but I'm fairly well read in archaeology and have never encountered any such information.) Finally, she gets the idea of the tzohar, a luminous gemstone containing the "primordial light of creation" (whatever that might be?!) passed down from Adam to Noah and used to light the interior of the Ark, from Jewish rabbinical tradition, the reliability of which is very dubious.
Given all of these factors, plus the idea that in antediluvian times fallen angels --and humans or half-humans who were versed in it-- could wield angelic magic which actually worked (and which plays a major role in the plotting here), I've chosen to classify this as fantasy rather than historical fiction. Like Robert E. Howard (though they're in many other respects very different writers), though she nominally sets her tale in very ancient times on this world, functionally it's for all practical purposes a fantasy world. The attempt to connect it with actual history, though, made it hard to suspend disbelief. Thompson also falls into several of the traps that tend to beset amateur writers: a temptation to tell rather than show, shallow character development, and a use of big or obscure words (sometimes used incorrectly) in an attempt to impress the reader rather than to communicate. (English has a rich vocabulary, and it's okay to use big or unusual words when they're needed to do a job --but not for their own sake.) Blocs of chapters narrated in the third person alternate erratically with first-person chapters narrated by various characters; but there seems to be no artistic reasons for the shifts of person. (The epilogue is an exception; the choice of first-person narrator there makes excellent sense.) Dialogue and first person narration often sound stilted (Ren and Tamara, in particular, don't sound like 11-year-old children at the times when that's what they're supposed to be). The world-building is mediocre. Finally, a seven-year gap in the action, inserted unexpectedly in the middle of a chapter, kills the forward momentum and sense of expectancy at this point in the tale. (It would have been okay inserted between chapters, and maybe with the Table of Contents divided into a Part I and Part II.)
It's fair to be said that there are some positives here, though, and I did finish the book (and gave it two stars rather than one, which says something). The author generates enough actual suspense in several places that (even knowing the basic historical outline) I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen to particular characters. I liked it that, despite the patriarchial nature of their society, our focus here is on three strong female characters with plenty of agency. Some readers might have a problem with relationships that could be characterized as "insta-love," but under the cultural and psychological circumstances of these particular characters in their situation, I found this aspect perfectly credible. There's also a lively awareness here of the fact that, as the 19th-century hymn declares, "There's a wideness in God's mercy," and I found that a rewarding message. (Some more censorious evangelicals might consider Thompson's view of God's mercy too wide --but I'm not one of these.) Some of her historical speculations come across as plausible and even astute (such as the possible identity of Tubal-Cain's sister Naamah in Genesis 4:22, a rare --and unexplained, in the text-- mention of a woman in a male-oriented culture).
There's now a sequel to this novel, Split Tongue, which I'm guessing deals with the Tower of Babel. However, I don't personally plan to add that one to my to-read shelf.
Read
January 13, 2026Falling Rain, A Haunting Reimagining of a World Before the Flood
This was a powerful and thought-provoking read. Drawing inspiration from The Book of Enoch, Falling Rain brings an ancient, mysterious world vividly to life, one filled with fear, faith, and difficult truths. Ren’s journey of identity, guilt, and redemption stayed with me, especially as she wrestles with who she is and where she belongs. The focus on three women rising through despair and doubt gives the story emotional depth, while its spiritual themes add weight without overwhelming the narrative. Dark, reflective, and ultimately hopeful, this is a story about forgiveness, courage, and finding purpose in a broken world.
This was a powerful and thought-provoking read. Drawing inspiration from The Book of Enoch, Falling Rain brings an ancient, mysterious world vividly to life, one filled with fear, faith, and difficult truths. Ren’s journey of identity, guilt, and redemption stayed with me, especially as she wrestles with who she is and where she belongs. The focus on three women rising through despair and doubt gives the story emotional depth, while its spiritual themes add weight without overwhelming the narrative. Dark, reflective, and ultimately hopeful, this is a story about forgiveness, courage, and finding purpose in a broken world.
January 3, 2022
An excellent read for the lover of biblical and historical fiction -- Falling Rain is a well-written tale about three women living in a pre-flood world. It's easy to read and hard to put down.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews