You Have to Read this Book!

At least that is what my three friends, whom I meet with every week, said.  And after reading it, they were exactly right!  I could not put it down!  'It' is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.  The story is set in the mid-1800s when everyone was rushing west for gold or fertile land.  It is a fictional retelling of the book of Hosea in the Bible.  It is about Angel, who was sold into prostitution at age eight.  Yep, I said eight.  Absolutely breaks your heart.  She grows up not knowing any other life and thinking all men are like the ones who use her.  But then she meets Michael, a farmer, who loves God and wants to help her learn to love Him and herself, too.  It is an amazing story of God's love for all of His creation and how he works in our hearts to bring us to Him.  The book was a page-turner that I couldn't put down once I began.  It was almost 500 pages and I read it in about three days.  It is extremely well written and real.  I appreciated the characters because I believed they could be real people.  Sometimes you read stories where a lost soul meets someone who introduces them to Jesus and then everyone lives happily ever after.  Life doesn't happen that way and it doesn't happen that way in Redeeming Love, either.  I loved the historical aspect, too.  California in the 1850s was an interesting time of gold and riches then desertion and famine.  This story has all of that plus the story of Michael and Angel.  I am quite thankful for the suggestion from my friends and I highly recommend it to others!