Title: Redeeming Love
Author: Francine Rivers
Category: Christian Fiction
Publication: 5/9/2005
Publisher: Multnomah Books
Format: Paper Back
Pages: 464
ISBN#: 1590525132
Synopsis:
A Story of Love That Won't Let Go - No Matter What!
California’s gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.
Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into prostitution as a child, she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.
Then she meets Michael Hosea, a man who seeks his Father’s heart in everything. Michael obeys God’s call to marry Angel and to love her unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel’s every bitter expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.
But with her unexpected softening comes overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from her husband’s pursuing love, terrified of the truth she no longer can deny: Her final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael does…the One who will never let her go.
A powerful retelling of the story of Gomer and Hosea, Redeeming Love is a life-changing story of God’s unconditional, redemptive, all-consuming love.
My Review:
Let me start out by saying I was so caught up in this book that I could not put it down. The style of writing by Francine Rivers is so riveting that before you realize it you are within the pages of the story and living among the characters lives. I could smell the flowers in the gardens that Sarah's Mama planted and tended to. When one of the characters would hurt you hurt right along with them.
Sarah started out as a child in the novel but grew up in some ways very fast and in other ways very hard. Seeing and hearing your Mama cry night after night, or seeing the distance in her eyes, could make you hard against the world or strong willed minded for it not to happen to you. Either way could make for a hard life. Never seeing or feeling the love of your earthly father could do the same.
Mae, Sarah's Mama, let us just put it this way for the lack of a better way, was a kept women. But she LOVED her man, Alex Stafford, more than life itself. She loved her daughter, Sarah, but will not go any further as to not give away the book.
Alex Stafford, Sarah's earthly father, (you will understand why I say earthly here, better when you read the novel) did not want her at all. He was a well do to, upstanding man, married and would not have his life destroyed by Sarah. He cared for them both financially, so Mama let Sarah believe. But only wanted one thing and only one thing. And when he wanted it, HE wanted it... At same time thought, Mama was just as much a willing partner to the agreement.
And those are just a few of the colorful characters that Francine Rivers places within your life while reading this novel. So for the story, I was amazed the way that it immediately grabbed my attention and took me from my living room to some far away land where a woman thought she could not live without the love of her man, but at the same time took such a chance to keep something that he did not want. Then, a heated conversation, heartbreak, through deep depression, then sending the very thing that you swore to love away for good.
Reading this novel took my emotions across such a wide spreed of feelings. At times I was crying with Sarah, wanting to smack Alex Stafford, wanting to just put my arms around Sarah and some of the other characters that I will not go into would even make other emotions arise.
This Novel was based from the book in the Bible of Hosea. So I was very impressed with the comparison. The unworthy feelings, the forgiveness, just the Love alone is so over whelming at times through this novel. Then at the same times through the story, the anger, hurt, and yes Hate comes in to play. The comparisons to the book of Hosea at times are so on the mark. An for that I praise Francine for taking Hosea and making it a role model for her Novel: Redeeming Love!
I would and will continue to read Francine Rivers Novels. So for that reason and many others I wholeheartedly give this Novel my rating of:
Five Clock Rating:
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