THE CITY HE COULDN'T TAKE: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL ADVENTURE

Someone buried a lie in 2,700-year-old dirt.Thirteen-year-old Ethan Mercer thought archaeology would mean ancient treasures, secret passages, and discoveries no one had seen for thousands of years.He wasn't completely wrong.At the ruins of Lachish in Israel, an inscribed clay fragment is uncovered with an astonishing claim: the Assyrian king Sennacherib conquered Jerusalem.There is just one problem.History says he didn't. The Bible says he didn't. And Sennacherib himself-famous for boasting about the cities he destroyed-never claimed that he did.For Ethan's father, archaeologist Dr. Daniel Mercer, that makes the discovery fascinating. It also makes it suspicious.Soon an excavation notebook disappears. A photograph captures something no one noticed at the time. A stranger begins asking questions. And Ethan and his fourteen-year-old sister, Maya, find themselves caught in a mystery where one false piece of evidence could rewrite an ancient story.To uncover the truth, the Mercers will have to follow the evidence from the ruins of Lachish to the streets beneath Jerusalem-and learn that sometimes the most dangerous thing buried in the past isn't an artifact.It's a lie.The City He Couldn't Take is the first book in When the Stones Speak, a series of archaeological adventures blending real history, biblical mysteries, family, faith, and modern-day danger.Real places. Real history. Dangerous mysteries.