Ruth's Redemption

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing Ruth's Redemption Moody Publishers/Lift Every Voice (February 1, 2012) by Marlene Banks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marlene Banks has worked 30+ years combined in nursing and the business arena. Her goal as a writer is to create inspiring, gripping and realistic stories with an emphasis on African American literature. She believes her gift and desire to write is from God and desires to use it to fulfill His purposes. Marlene lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she is a member of Bethel Deliverance International Church.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Set in the 1800s, Ruth's Redemption, is an unusual depiction of the lives of slaves and free blacks in pre-Civil War America. Bo, a main character, was educated while a slave. He was given his freedom and now owns a farm buying slaves for the sole purpose of giving them their freedom.

Bo is also a man of God and widower whose life is destined to change when he meets the proud and hard-hearted slave girl, Ruth. Ruth has known nothing but servitude and brutality since being separated from her mother at age thirteen. Purchased and sold primarily for breeding, Ruth struggles to adjust to life outside of bondage. She wants no part of Bo's Godly devotion. Yet Bo is unlike any man she's known and her experiences with him will leave her forever changed.

A gripping slave era novel, Ruth's Redemption is a story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of the Nat Turner Rebellion in Tidewater, Virginia, this novel shines the light of God's unconditional love in the darkness of a culture's cruel socially accepted inhumanity.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Ruth's Redemption, go HERE.

MY THOUGHTS:

This is a captivating book which portrays that, however deep the sin and depravity, God's love is greater still. Due to the subject matter, I was expecting this to be a morose and depressing--and perhaps even dry--book to read, but I was immediately drawn into the story from the first page. Marlene Banks has crafted a story that is frank and authentic in its portrayal of the darkness of the days before the Civil War, yet at the same time she has infused it with the hope and love of God, even--or especially!--when He is unseen and certainly not understood. This is truly a beautiful and tender story of redemption that will touch your heart.

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