The Sword of Eden tells the story of Eve and Mary from their points of view. It connects their lives--Eve as the mother of us all, looking forward to the birth of one who is promised to bruise the head of the serpent in the garden, and Mary as the New Eve whose son will do so. They tell their own stories which are central to the biblical story of salvation as well as their typical lives as women, wives, and mothers. Grindal has used sonnet forms to tell their stories.

Gracia Grindal, Luther Seminary Professor of Rhetoric Emerita, received her MFA from the University of Arkansas in Poetry in 1969. She taught Creative Writing at Luther College, Homiletics and Hymnody at Luther Seminary in St. Paul MN. She has written several books of poetry over the past forty years, Sketches Against the Dark, (1984) A Revelry of Harvest, (2002) The Sword of Eden (2018) and Jesus the Harmony: Gospel Sonnets for 366 Days (Fortress 2021) favoring the sonnet form. This latest book, a continuation of poetry about our Mother Eve, continues in that tradition with other formal poetry written over the past decade.