Esther John was born Qamar Zia ... There she was profoundly moved by the transparent faith of one of her teachers, and she began to read the Bible earnestly. It was when reading the 53rd chapter of ...

Others like Gregory Nazianzen also excluded Esther from the Bible [JBC, p. 522]. Jerome while favoring the shorter canon, several times in his writings cited Books from the larger canon as Scripture.

The young Jewess Esther, adopted daughter of her uncle Mordecai, is among the girls selected; they are told to beautify themselves in the royal harem and prepare to spend the night with the king.

As mentioned, the Book of Esther is the last book included by the rabbis in the cannon. Keep in mind that the Jewish bookshelf at the time had many, many more books than what we find in the Bible.