Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3

by Benjamin Laskin

  Evil cannot be extinguished or appeased, but it is not indomitable either. Darkness blanches before the smallest light. God sends mankind candles every day, but the yetzers hold the matches. It requires a flinty courage to wrestle them free, and a noble soul to then strike them. In a darkened world, the man with the match is rarely loved; for a candle lit is a thousand sins revealed.

  Captain Cyrus is the first cupid angel known to have survived banishment, but despite his vindication, there is no returning for him, and he must pass his mortal days on Earth. In his heart, however, he still sees himself as an angel of God, and his duty the same as before.

  A cupid angel is a matchmaker, but we discovered that HaShem had blessed us with a little more latitude than we thought. We can be more than soldiers of love. We can also be warriors of justice. Cyrus will go where the need for love and justice takes him, and Virgil and I will be at his side.

  The documents that Gideon and Cyrus escaped with from Alexander Rosso’s office revealed a Medusa of sinister associations. Rosso was the head snake, but since his death, two other shadowy and viperous powerbrokers and their dedicated consortiums emerged from the nest, already vying to replace him. Their objectives are essentially the same—a one-world government headed by a brain trust of elites. The fight is over whose organization will be calling the shots.

  Both oligarchies are in the process of assembling alliances with an assortment of radical cabals: dictators and nuclear-possessing potentates, Islamic chieftains, communists, crony corporatists, anarchists, and crime syndicates and drug lords. For the winner, the prize is unlimited wealth and power.

  Standing in their way are seven valiant leaders; princes of men, intent on keeping the flame of liberty alive. These individuals do not yet realize the roles they are meant to play, but as soon as they choose to shed their hesitancy and demonstrate the righteous courage they unwittingly possess, we will gladly fly to them and lend them sword and shield.

  Although yetzers are apolitical and live in individuals, not parties or groups, all conflict is music to their ears. It is the moral realm that animates yetzers. They thrive on hatred and hypocrisy, prejudice and bigotry, lies and iniquity, which, regretfully, make humankind easy targets.

  Yetzers are always searching for your weakest link in the chain that tethers you to the good, the righteous, and to God. Once found, the yetzers gnaw on it until the chain snaps and flies away, causing you to waste the rest of your life stumbling between states of confusion, diffidence, and ennui.

  As for persons and groups who willfully unmoor themselves from their better natures; who call evil good and good evil; who take pride in their yetzers and worship the darkness the yetzers inspire in others: they are akin to the molars in the yetzers’ slavering maws.

  Yetzers infest every human, but they are satisfied with mediocrity. They will usually lie low, content to graze like feral billy goats on your weak wills. As long as you remain passive or blame others for your failures, shortcomings, resentment, or sense of hopelessness, they will keep their mischief-making to a minimum. Laziness comes as naturally to yetzers as it does to most humans.

  It is only when you feel the urge to stand up, to act with boldness, to improve yourself in any demonstrable way, do the yetzers snap into action to nip your attempt in the bud, and so convince you that your inclination was fatuous; your dream, futile.

  More than goodness or virtue, what the yetzers fear most is your knowledge of their existence. An enemy that can’t be named can’t be defeated. Overcoming the yetzer begins with knowledge, which leads to understanding, which, in the hands of gallant men and women, becomes educated will.

  Not until you awake to the existence of the yetzers within you do these demons really begin to stir and assert themselves. Knowledge is light, and yetzers, which reside in the dark recesses of your mind, hate and resent light, and will curse you for exposing them to it.

  Once acknowledged, the yetzers will defend themselves with a vengeance. They will employ your own frailties against you. The demons will kindle self-doubt, negativity, weariness, and all manner of self-sabotage; including physical pain through the mysterious emergence of chronic, mind-induced ailments ranging from ulcers to back pain. Should you nonetheless persevere, the yetzers may use more refined techniques, such as duping you into a false sense of security, as if the battle were won, allowing your ego to bring you crashing down in ignominious defeat.

  If, however, you possess sufficient intelligence and emuna to understand what is going on, and you overcome such trials or temptations, it is likely that next your reputation will come under vicious attack. Yetzer-infested minions who delight in raising themselves up by tearing others down, may target your character until it is obliterated.

  I know that overcoming your yetzers sounds difficult, if not impossible, but that is the yetzers in you talking, not me. Yes, they are powerfully fiendish foes, but by combining faith, courage, and determination, they can be subdued.

  As strange as it may seem, ultimately the yetzers are here to bring the best out of you. Weirdly, you need them to help you figure out who you are and what you are meant to do.

  Seen sagely then, the resistance that the yetzers present is the furnace that forges your iron will, and the whetstone to ensure its keen edge.

  Take their confrontation as a sign that you are onto something; that you have stepped upon a path worth pursuing. Understand that the greater your goal, the more formidable the opposition. The fiercer the resistance to your goal; the closer you are to achieving it.

  Yetzers are blind. Their cruel machinations are not personal. It’s not you the man or woman that they seek to destroy, but your intention in striving to be a better you, your higher you; the you unimagined by all but your Creator. Yetzers do what they do because they know of nothing else. Your soul, on the other hand, knows of everything else. It’s a choice.

  And should you choose to fight, to overcome, to rise, to complete your destiny; know that you have allies in me, Virgil, Commander Sett, and a host of other angels at your elbow. We aren’t going anywhere. HaShem has charged you with a destiny to fulfill, and us with the job of helping you to achieve it. We shall never forsake Him or our sacred duty.

  Dear friends, do not despair. Do not be disconcerted or discouraged. Onwards with grit, upwards with faith. Love abides. God is never further than a prayer away.

  The End

  A Message from Benjamin Laskin

  Thank you for reading Shooting Eros. I hope that you enjoyed it. I really appreciate that you gave one of my books a chance.

  If you liked the book, I hope you’ll consider rating it at Amazon.com. Reviews are crucial to a book’s success, and so your stars could make a huge difference. Thank you very much!

  With gratitude and warmest regards,

  Benjamin Laskin

  Other Novels by Benjamin Laskin

  Did you enjoy Shooting Eros? There is more where that came from. All of Benjamin Laskin’s novels are available both as paperbacks and e-books at Amazon.com.

  Novels by Benjamin Laskin

  Stormer’s Pass

  Say Uncle

  The Will

  Shooting Eros: The Emuna Chronicles (3-book Series)

  Murphy’s Luck

  The Amazing Adventures of 4¢ Ned (Coinworld Series)

  STORMER’S PASS

  If you can’t wait for a hero, you must become one.

  The sleepy town of Pinecrest is jolted from its slumbers by two unlikely citizens—star high school quarterback, Max Stormer, and Aidos, an extraordinary girl who has been living unobserved in the surrounding hills.

  Aidos opens Max’s eyes to potential he didn’t know he possessed, putting them both on a collision course with the town’s own ambitious plans. The resulting clash draws the astonishment of the entire country, and soon Max finds himself captain of something much bigger than a football team. To save Aidos and his town, Max must lead his team into the contest of their lives. Whether maverick or hero, out
law or savior, being a champion was never harder.

  Stormer’s Pass is an enthralling adventure of two people’s uncommon faith in each other, their friends, and in the miracle-making powers of courage.

  SAY UNCLE

  Believing in himself was difficult.

  Someone else believing in him was deadly.

  Guy Andrews has spent his 20 years on his back crying uncle. His hope for change arrives in the form of a beguiling young woman who recruits him to track down a man he has never met, whose name he cannot know, and whose amazing life Guy can unravel only through clues left in the man’s secret-saturated journals.

  Lured into a world of gorgeous spies and ruthless assassins, Guy needs to find Anonymous Man before the man’s many enemies find Guy. To do so, Guy must slay the slacker within, draw on wits and courage he didn’t know he possessed, and solve the mystery of his own past before Max and Aidos become its next victims.

  Say Uncle is the story of a young man’s enlightening and humorous struggle to find in anonymity his own unique place, and so—to say uncle no more.

  THE WILL

  Putting the will in willpower.

  Josh McCain has two years to reinvent himself. Stripped of everything that made life a swanky, booze and babe-filled breeze, Josh embarks on a grueling and often hilarious two-year regimen of self-discipline that targets his mind, body, and spirit.

  Along the way, skeptics mock him, his own past taunts him, and saboteurs resolve to stop him. But Josh is determined to complete his “bucket list from hell,” and prove that who he was is not as important as who he can become.

  Operating in unfamiliar territory, Josh turns to a cast of quirky characters to aid him on his secret journey; persons he’d have previously shunned. Upbeat and inspiring, The Will is an enthralling story of goofs and grit, of the regenerative power of friendship—and if Josh doesn’t blow it—real love.

  SHOOTING EROS

  Matchmaking has just gone ballistic.

  Trained in Heaven by secret sages; dismayed on Earth by evil men: a banished cupid commando battles to save both from a loveless oblivion.

  In the year 2034, Heaven’s most lethal cupid commando, Captain Cyrus, is exiled to Earth where he is expected to die a quick and unlamented death. Instead, Cyrus sets out to remind both battered and faithless worlds that some things are still worth fighting for.

  Two worlds divided; one holy mission. A match made in Heaven; a love forged on Earth. Love is a battlefield.

  A genre-bending epic fantasy.

  MURPHY’S LUCK

  Sometimes rotten luck is better than no luck at all.

  Jinxed from birth with astonishing bad luck, Murphy Drummer hasn’t ventured beyond his backyard since he was a little boy. To remedy his loneliness he immersed himself in the mastering of hundreds of hobbies, and in the process developed some amazing abilities.

  Now grown up, Murphy must seek a new sanctuary where the world might be safe from his mystifying jinx. Trailing both miracles and mayhem wherever he goes, Murphy stumbles into Joy Daley, a happy-go-lucky optimist who never forgot to thank her lucky stars. The comical, topsy-turvy effects from the collision of Lady Luck and Murphy’s Jinx whimsically upends the lives of everyone in their paths.

  At first, Murphy’s victims question who he is; at last, they’ll be questioning who they aren’t. An inspiring and magical romantic comedy of wood-tapping proportions.

  THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF 4¢ NED

  (COINWORLD SERIES)

  Don’t meddle with the metal.

  When the world needed a good 4¢ nickel, Ned rimmed up.

  Stamped with a one-cent handicap, laughed at and mocked inside every purse or pocket he dropped into, Ned never believed he’d amount to much, not even a cheap cigar.

  But when fate places him rim to rim with a sagacious Indian nickel, Ned learns that he has a most surprising destiny. Chief Iron Tail instructs Ned in the ways of wampum, and Ned discovers within his little diameter a million bucks of fantastic. Teaming up with a luckless Lincoln wheat penny, the coins become champions of small change everywhere as they sally forth to save Coinworld from a worthless future.

  A bigger story never came in a smaller package.

  4¢ Ned is e pluribus awesome.

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  Thank you!

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks and much appreciation to my ever-loving mother, and my supportive brothers: Wayne, Hardy, and Jeff.

  Gratitude, handshakes, and slaps on the back to the Swiss Army knife of friends, Brian Volkhausen, for his inspiration, enthusiasm, and enduring moral support; to Curtis for his unwavering good will; to Jon for the great conversations in ‘the sacred corner’ of our favorite Japanese izakaya; to Bunk and his always cheering, comical ways, and a heartfelt thanks to Yuko, my first fan.

  I am also indebted to Avner and Dina, Shmuel and Adina, Yeshaya and Leah, Coby and Ethne, and all their families for helping to keep body and soul together with their fine meals, friendships, and their shining examples.

  Lastly, I’d be remiss for not thanking my hated yetzers, which sought to sabotage my every writing day and caused me endless frustration and delay as they tried everything to keep this novel from seeing the light of day. Without their incessant interference and relentless opposition, this story would have been impossible. (Huh? Read the book. :-)

  About the Author

  Benjamin Laskin grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He has traveled extensively and lived in a number of countries, including many years in Hamamatsu, Japan. He can now be found sauntering through the maze of narrow, stony alleyways in the ancient and legend-rich town of Safed, in Israel’s upper Galilee. He is currently at work on his next novel.

  Benjamin would be thrilled to hear from you!

  www.benjaminlaskin.com

  benjamin@benjaminlaskin.com