Onlookers
2026
Valerie’s fourteenth published book.
Have you ever thought about those ‘other’ characters in stories in the Bible? The ones on the edges of familiar tales – and some not so familiar. Onlookers, the third book in Valerie Volk’s Bystanders / Witnesses series, brings to life another set of interesting people. The stories may be fiction, but they leave the reader wondering.
What about the girl who missed the marriage feast because she forgot to put oil in her lamp? Or the man who was forced to carry the cross on the way to the crucifixion? Or the woman who cut off Samson’s hair and destroyed his strength? Or Jesus’ sister?
These people are all there – and now in Onlookers the ones in the shadows get the chance to tell their own stories. Stories that could have happened. This book takes sixteen people and opens a whole new world of speculation for us in a vivid re-creation of their times and possible lives.
In Onlookers, Valerie Volk brings different perspectives to stories and people we thought we knew and raises challenging questions about our own times and lives.
"Volk's characters speak directly to today's reader in a wonderful variety of voices, sharing bewilderments, moral dilemmas and human frailties."
- Associate Professor Jennifer Gribble
Onlookers includes an appendix of questions on each story, suitable for church small groups, home study discussion sessions, senior school students in Christian Studies, Religious Education, Language Arts, History, and classes in ethics or social/moral issues.
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Readers of Valerie Volk will be delighted with her new offering, Onlookers, beautifully written stories of biblical people unheard. These insightful stories of betrayal, love, retribution and more, make us reflect with a different way of looking. Have you ever washed your hands of someone? Felt like murder? Could we die to ourselves like the man who remembered carrying the cross? The stories and discussion questions are suitable for adults and young adults alike to savour and recollect.
— Dr Rosanne Hawkee
In the third in her series of biblical fiction Volk continues to surprise. These are not simply stories of forgotten characters, or familiar stories told from an unfamiliar angle. This is a collection deep psychological profiles of a range of biblical characters from the sympathetic (Elizabeth), to the misunderstood (Rahab), to the quite frankly bad (Lamech). Each is unexpectedly complex, and each has something to share with us. I will never read their stories in the same light again.
— Rev. Dr Mark Worthing
Sit with Valerie Volk’s onlookers and be transported by what they see and hear and feel. She creates characters who speak directly to today’s reader, and in a wonderful variety of voices, sharing with us bewilderments, moral dilemmas and human frailties. Volk is an imaginative and theologically-informed interpreter of the key biblical encounters she holds in focus: from the prophets of old to the coming of the promised Messiah. An appendix of discussion notes is an added gift for the individual reader or group seeking a fresh approach to the Bible’s fund of stories.
— Ass. Professor Jennifer Gribble, Honorary Associate Professor, Department of English, The University of Sydney