Did Delilah know her own heart?
Samson “told her all his heart.” An enemy revealing too much to a sultry spy? Or a man opening his heart to the woman whom he truly loves—and who loves him?
So there you have my Delilah’s dilemma, as the Sun’s Son and Night’s Daughter dance, forever joined in our minds . . .
As eternal enemies? As eternal lovers? Or . . . as both?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With grateful thanks to those who read and commented on the various and varied drafts of this book: William Ahlbach, Ellen Bushyhead, Ginny Collins, Dawn Cox, Pam Curry, Bonnie Edghill, Rosemary Edghill, Ginger Garrett, Haley Elizabeth Garwood, Roberta Gellis, Sarah Johnson, Nicole Jordan, Michael Kourtoulou, Cynthia Miller, Myra Morales, Michelle Moran, Patricia Myers, Tamara Myers, Laura Ottinger, Laura Pilkington, Diane and Dr. Maurice Rawlings, Niloufer Reifler, Marge Root, Virginia Saunders, Dora Schisler, Ron and Jenny Stone, Gloria Edghill Wenk. (My sister Bonnie and my friend Dora get bonus points for promptly pointing out that lions don’t purr. In case you care, the largest cat that purrs is the cheetah. And Diane—thanks for all the extra Philistines!)
As always, the St. Martin’s crew is wonderful, with special thanks to my editor, Nichole Argyres, and her assistant, Kylah McNeill. Ditto to my agent, Anna Ghosh, as well as to my copy editor, Susan M. S. Brown, and to Steve Balyeat, creator of gorgeous Web sites.
This list wouldn’t be complete without adding the outrageously great Cecil B. DeMille, whose 1949 Samson and Delilah, in glorious Technicolor, is one of the all-time wonderful biblical epics, with some amazing costumes only equaled in magnificence and inaccuracy by those worn by Lana Turner in the equally fabulous The Prodigal (1955).
An even greater debt is owed to my mother and father, who loved old movies almost as much as they loved books, and introduced me to both.
Delilah: A Novel Page 34