Friday 56 & #BookBeginnings: A Vision of Angels

For Book Beginnings:

The boy shakes his best friends hands and wills his eyes to express love. He's seen how it's done on the soaps his mother watches, the squinting and forced tears, though there's nothing forced for him. He may never see his friend again. - First paragraph, Prologue (from ARC)
For Friday 56: Mishe hobbled towards them carrying the wounded boy in his arms; the woman trailed behind howling with grief. "He can't wait for an ambulance! You have to take him!" - p. 56 (from ARC, page may change)
This book has been consuming me ... about a week and half of my time so far and I'm still not done. It's intense but I can't rush through it ... well, because it's intense. Like watching a war correspondence onscreen real-time. What do you think based on these excerpts?
On another note, I have TWO GIVEAWAYS right now. One of them is ending tomorrow, so please don't forget to check them out!  Looks like a good barbeque weekend in my neck of the woods!

Synopsis: A terrorist attack planned for Easter Sunday in Jerusalem sets off a chain of events that weave together the lives of an American journalist, Israeli war hero, Palestinian farmer, and Christian grocer. Alerted to a suicide bomb plot, Major Jakov Levy orders the closure of the border with the Gaza Strip. Unable to get his produce to market, Amin Mousa dumps truckloads of tomatoes in a refugee camp. Paul Kessler, an American journalist, sees it on television and goes to Gaza for Amin's personal story. Hamas militants plot to smuggle the bomb out in Paul’s car and retrieve it when he returns home, but he’s unexpectedly detoured on the way. Meanwhile, a Hamas member confesses to the plot, and the race is on to find Paul and retrieve the bomb before the terrorists can. A Vision of Angels is a human drama set against the background of the Middle East conflict. Ultimately it’s a story of reconciliation and hope, but not before events as tragic as a modern passion play change the lives of four families forever.