He is different from any other man Angel has ever known and this makes her confused and unwilling to trust him. She runs away at her first opportunity, but Michael is quick to find her and convince her to come home. The next time Angel runs away, she gets a ride with Michael's brother-in-law, Paul, who hates her because of her past.
When he demands payment for the ride, she pays him the only way she knows how, by allowing him to have sex with her. Their relationship is poisoned by this event until the very end of the novel. Back in the city, Angel is forced back into prostitution, but finds it more difficult now to remain distant. When an angry Michael shows up at the brothel and takes her home again, it is the relief on her face when she sees him that gives him hope and allows him to forgive her. For the first time, Angel is truly honest with Michael about her past, and their relationship begins to grow, based on honesty and affection.
Angel does not run away from Michael again for a long time, but when she does, it is because she is terrified to find herself falling in love with him. When she realizes that she does love him, she remembers what love did to her mother, and forces herself to leave. This time, however, she stays away from her old life, and is able to make an honest living for the first time in her life.
When Michael comes to find her yet again, she confesses that she ran away because she was scared to love him, and he assures her that she can trust him. She agrees to go home with him again. The final time Angel runs away, it is not because she doesn't love Michael, or even because she is scared of her love.
This time, she proves that she loves him enough to make sacrifices for him. She believes that what Michael wants most in the world is children, but she is unable to bear children herself. She believes that by leaving, she will give Michael freedom to find someone else to marry, and he will therefore be happier without her.
When she leaves this time, she intends to stay away forever. This time is also different because Michael does not go after her, believing that she needs to come back on her own. Angel is gone for three years, and has started a successful mission to help other young prostitutes, when Paul finally comes to find her. He soon realizes that he has been wrong about Angel all this time, and convinces her that Michael is still in love with her.
Angel returns home to Michael for a final time, offering her love and her life. Instagram Twitter Facebook Amazon Pinterest I am not religious, so my review of this inspirational romance will be coming from the perspective of a secular reader.
Francine Rivers is a name that gets bandied around a lot, not just in the christian fiction groups, but also in the historical romance groups in general. I was curious to Instagram Twitter Facebook Amazon Pinterest I am not religious, so my review of this inspirational romance will be coming from the perspective of a secular reader.
I was curious to see what she was like. As soon as I began reading this book, I literally had two people message me to inform me that this book allegedly takes two forms: the version and the version. I apparently have the version, which was edited to remove swear words and explicit love scenes to make it religion-friendly, which is definitely the case in my version.
All sex scenes are very much fade-to-black, or in the case of one scene, ends with the hero and heroine soaring towards heaven - metaphorically, I'd imagine. Unless I somehow picked up a paranromal romance book without actually catching on. Over the years she has become bitter and cold; it's her only defense against her growing despair at sleeping with men she doesn't like in a prison gilded by the gold dust of the Californian mining town she's settled in.
On one of her walks, Michael Hosea sees Angel and hears God tell him that this is the woman he is destined to marry. When he finds out what she is, he throws a mini-hissy before pulling up his britches and delivering Angel the news. She is not amused, and rebuffs him multiple times. When he marries her, she's actually unconscious from a beating.
Much of the book is Angel learning to deal with her guilt and self-hatred. Her bitterness is exceptionally well done, and the pain she feels is warranted. The epilogue of this book is straight out of a bodice ripper, and the more I found out about her backstory - neglect, abuse, rape, assault, incest, probably PTSD - the more I sympathized with her. No matter how frustrated I felt with her as a character, I always felt that her actions were in line with her character.
It takes a long time before she's able to trust Michael, and when she does, it happens in stages. She trusts him with her body and her well-being long before she's willing to let him have her heart. This story is apparently a retelling of a bible story about two people named Gomer and Hosea.
I have not read the original story, so I'm not sure how accurate or true the retelling is. I will say that the story manages to stand on its own fairly well and I was engaged for the majority of the book.
It was in the last quarter where I feel it begins to fail a bit, as God appears to drive Angel away from Michael because she views Michael as a god instead of Him Then one of Angel's friends tells her that she has a prayer box to remind her not to be self-sufficient, but to rely on God instead, and that whenever there's something she wants to do something about she just writes a note and puts it in the box I didn't mind the way God's voice was written in this book, however, and I thought it was clever how what I assume was the devil took the voice of Angel's abuser.
What better way to turn her away from the path of self-betterment than to take the voice of the man who made her feel as if she were beyond redemption in the first place? I also thought that the way the religion was written in this book is probably suitable for the time period in which it was written ish , because most people in the 19th century were religious, and it formed the backbone of their social circles in many cases.
Honestly, my two biggest pet peeves were that epilogue and the fact that Paul got an HEA. The epilogue annoyed me because I felt like it wasn't realistic. I get that it was intended to be a miracle, but I really did not like it. I also really did not like Paul. Ooh, I saw red when that happened.
I kept thinking to myself, "If this were a bodice ripper, Paul would be killed in a stampede of cows, or in a cave-in while trying to steal someone else's gold. I'm very glad I finally got around to reading a Francine Rivers book. She is a good writer, with a sense of characterization and pacing, and absolutely beautiful descriptions of nature.
Yes, religion is a definite focal point in this book but not to the point where it's utterly preachy, either. Her Mark of the Lion series looks especially interesting, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get a copy of that on the cheap. I love Ancient Rome. View all 5 comments. I listened to this one on my iPod. I tried so hard not to cry especially toward the end but I finally had to pull over and wipe my eyes when it ended. So much grief, redemption and joy.
A fantastic story that drew me in and kept me glued. Its a historical romance set in mid 's gold country region of California. Angel is a damaged young woman working a brothel and struggling with many horrors from her past. Michael is a devout Christian who believes God wants him wow, a very powerful story! Michael is a devout Christian who believes God wants him to marry Angel - a soiled dove. Apparently this is a retelling of a bible story. I think this may be only the second Christian themed novel I've ever read, which means its the first one I ever finished.
While it was very inspirational it refrained from being preachy. Its not a light read, and at times was even depressing. But the writing was so spot on and the characters so real I couldn't stop. And it does end with a great ending. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to crawl into the book to talk with Angel, hug Michael, slap his brother, kill a bad guy, shelter a person down on their luck I can see why it has such high ratings by sooooo many people. But my next book will be a light read.
I don't think I could take two books like this in a row! Mar 27, Ivan rated it did not like it. DNF page 50 I was supposed to read this to page as punishment for lost bet but I'm gonna be dishonorable scum and just bail out of it because I just can't go on with this. This book is probably good if you are into this kind of stuff but religious romance about redeeming love for anti-romantic, cynical atheist like me was just torture.
View all 15 comments. Read this years ago and realized I hadn't rated it. Such a beautiful story! Sarah was the by-product of an affair between her mother and a wealthy married man - a father who was only interested in his mistress and wants nothing to do with his child.
He eventually dumps them, and cut off from funds and family let's just say that life on the docks isn't easy. When she's left on her own, Sarah is sold to a pedophile and eventually into prostitution.
The main focus of the story begins years later as Sarah now called Angel is most highly sought after prostitute in the Cali Sarah was the by-product of an affair between her mother and a wealthy married man - a father who was only interested in his mistress and wants nothing to do with his child. The main focus of the story begins years later as Sarah now called Angel is most highly sought after prostitute in the California gold rush town of Pair-of-Dice.
Angel's not only a valuable commodity to the house she works for, but the life she's been forced to lead comes with some serious emotional baggage - does Michael have enough faith and love for both of them? But it's a seriously long road with plenty of ups and downs.
Despite wanting to have to smack Angel a few times I thoroughly enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down. River's story is based on the Book of Hosea, and while this is Christian fiction a genre I don't normally read , I didn't find it overly preachy at all. My only quibble is with the epilogue, just skip it and let the story end where it should have. Oh, and have the tissue box handy for the ending, you'll need it.
View all 22 comments. Recommended to Stacia the club by: Buddy read with Archaeologists Anonymous. Shelves: adult , historical-romance , spiritual-or-religious. Oh, if she could only be Eve again, a new creature in Paradise. Before the Fall. I had a full review typed out and accidentally closed my window without saving. Take 2 will have a couple of thoughts and a very awesome quote missing.
Michael's prayers have led him to Angel, and when he sees her, he knows that she is the one he has been praying for. However, Michael is having a hard time convincing Angel of this. For Angel Oh, if she could only be Eve again, a new creature in Paradise. For Angel is a prostitute - a woman who knows nothing of love.
She was raised to be an object for men. No man has ever shown her love or respect, which makes Angel wary of Michael's good intentions.
Even though I ended up with the less-descriptive version of this story the intimate scenes were cut back , I didn't mind the lack of sex. What I did mind was the way that the editing was done, in such a manner that I felt like there were pieces missing from the overall connection between the couple. If I'd had the original copy, I'm sure this would be a solid 4 star or higher book for me. Will non-inspirational readers like this book? I think in many cases, yes. The message was more about patience and perseverance than anything.
Michael had to wait years for his beloved Sarah Angel to let him into her heart. Fans of stories such as Love Comes Softly will appreciate the love and effort put forth from Michael in his wait for Sarah.
I was fine with God speaking to Michael and Sarah, but adding in the "dark" voice only made for a dueling-banjos or classic cartoon with the devil and angel on each shoulder effect.
I feel like the story would have had more impact if there had been a few moments of quiet prodding from God, vs. It got a little noisy in the characters heads with the question and answer sessions. The best part of this story was going on the entire journey with Michael and Sarah, from start to finish. The love might have been inspired, but getting the Happy-Ever-After was no easy feat.
This is 's Gold-Rush California, where the times are hard and you have to work to carve out a life for yourself.
I love frontier and pioneer stories, and getting to see how people survived in these times. I rooted for these characters and empathized with their struggles. It made the love story that much sweeter.
An extra bonus was seeing the lives of friends and people close to the main characters achieve their own happy-ever-afters. Paul and Miriam's story was lovely and a great tribute to Boaz and Ruth, one of my favorite Bible stories. All in all, I came away from this read content and inspired. I would love to take in something else from this author at another point in time. I know that this book is practically worshipped in Christian fiction circles but I there were a couple issues in it that really angered me - hence, the two star rating.
If you love this book, you'll probably want to skip my review I liked her and wholeheartedly sympathized with her. I did find the fact that Michael's last name was 'Hosea' to be pretty on the nose along with Michael drawing direct parallels between the book of Hosea and his situation. But I still enjoyed the retelling aspect. I feel like Francine Rivers put herself in Angel's shoes and then created the 'perfect' hero to sweep her off her feet.
Michael was unrealistically perfect It was like he was trying to create a woman in his mind and kept changing her name to match his ideas of Angel. Super control freakish. Then there's the fact that he never gives Angel the benefit of the doubt more on that in a bit and always thinks "she's so awful and has done such awful things" BUT he never as far as I can remember adds "but we're all sinners - including me - so I shouldn't put myself on a higher moral plain".
Okay, I get that there's going to be quite a bit of focus on sex because Angel was a prostitute and she doesn't trust men and she hates the thought of intimacy with any man. It got really tiring, really quickly. So, 'God' constantly talks in Michael and Angel's heads. I personally believe that God doesn't audibly talk to people ever since his Word was completed so that made me roll my eyes. Negative voices and since the positive ones are supposed to be God, I can only assume that the negative ones are demons.
Or Satan himself. Which presents a whole new set of theological problems that I'm not going to get into. It's just disturbing. And then the worst thing Okay, let me set the scene: Michael's brother-in-law, Paul, comes to visit. He recognizes Angel as a former prostitute and freaks out. Totally looks down his nose at her. When she tries to run away, he takes her with him to drop her off at the town she used to work in. Because he doesn't want her around Michael.
On the way, he stops the wagon and tells her that she has to pay him for the ride Angel technically says 'okay', but in such a way that she's trying to shame him into saying no She believes she doesn't have a choice in the matter and if she'd refused, he'd almost certainly have raped her.
So can we just all agree that she was raped? So, Angel ends up going back to Michael. Michael figures out what happened but instead of laying into Paul, he basically ignores him. He blames Angel for what happened and doesn't even bother to get the full story from her even though he asked her to go into great detail about other events in her life.
Paul blames Angel. And Angel blames herself. There are no charges pressed against Paul and Michael doesn't even seem really mad at him after the initial discovery. But you know what makes it even worse? A new family shows up in the area and they have this super sweet, awesome, sixteen-year-old daughter named Miriam.
Angel and Michael agree that she needs a husband this is the 's, so 16 wasn't too young? He raped your wife and you don't even care enough to do anything about it! Admittedly, Michael doesn't know all the details but he should have given Angel the benefit of the doubt AND laid into Paul until Paul admitted everything.
But Miriam ends up marrying Paul and even though Paul kind of repents it's still awful. And Michael, to be honest. So, yeah, please don't read this book. View all 8 comments. I can safely say that I should have never started this book. I have heard about this book for ages. It pops up from time to time on friends' feeds, and with over 70, Goodreads ratings and over 1, Amazon ratings, I'd say it is a pretty popular book. When I saw this come up on NetGalley, I was hesitant to give this a try.
I asked a few GR friends if they thought that this book was app I can safely say that I should have never started this book. I asked a few GR friends if they thought that this book was appropriate for someone who isn't Christian or religious, and they all said yes, that it was more of an uplifting love story than anything else. I have to respectfully say that they were wrong.
This book is very heavy on the religious themes. There is a case of insta-love as dictated by Jesus and God saving a woman from a life of despair and prostitution. The theme of the story is based on the Book of Hosea from the Bible, where God told the prophet, Hosea to marry a prostitute.
It is a love and God conquers all type of story. However, religious content aside, this book is just not my speed. The beginning of this book is actually very sad and depressing.
It features child abuse and neglect, all of which I dislike reading about. Also, technically speaking, I wasn't too impressed with the writing style. It often dove into the realm of "cheesy" and "eye-roll-inducing". Besides, the insta-love is annoying in any setting. I won't do a long, picky review of this book. I didn't finish it and I'm not rating it because I recognize that I am not the target audience for this story.
I'm glad that many of my friends have loved this one but this certainly isn't for me. View all 25 comments. I feel like my heart has just been put through the wringer.
There are two versions of Redeeming Love : the original version, and the version that was sanitized to remove the coarse language and very mild love scenes to make it fit for the Inspirational market.
I bought the original version, but even with it being the original, the story still has a strong religious bent, and the love scenes are not explicit but more implied. To be honest, I put off reading this for a very lo I feel like my heart has just been put through the wringer.
You have only to browse my bookshelves to know I prefer books with a bit more Angel has known nothing but a life of pain from the day she was born. At a very young age, she was sold into prostitution, and from that point on, lives through unspeakable horrors, at times barely surviving and often asking herself why.
Enter Michael Hosea. The one that would be his wife. How is he so certain? God tells him so. Michael is a man of faith, and his faith is what carries him through during the duration of this story and his heartbreaking relationship with Angel. Redeeming Love is a deeply emotional roller coaster. Be prepared for some hard-core angst. I gave up everything for you! My family, my friends, my self-respect, everything I believed in, every hope I ever had.
You come and go when and as you please. And they know who you are, and they know what I am. No one looks at me. No one speaks to me. Sarah feels it, too. She asked me about it once, and I told her we were different from other people. Do you remember how happy we were? We never argued. I wish she had never been born! Mama cried out a terrible name. There was a crash. Terrified, Sarah got up and ran. Gasping, her sides burning, she dropped into the tall grass, her shoulders heaving with sobs, her face streaked with tears.
She heard a horse galloping toward her. Scrambling for a better hiding place in the vines about the creek, she peered out and saw her father ride by on his great black horse. Ducking down, she huddled there, crying, and waited for Mama to come fetch her. After a while, Sarah wandered back to the springhouse and sat by the flowered vines and waited longer. By the time Mama came, Sarah had dried her tears and dusted off her pretty frock.
She was still shaking from what she had heard. Mama was very pale, her eyes dull and red rimmed. There was a blue mark on the side of her face. She had tried to cover it with powder. She had been watching for her. She never wanted to see him again. He had hurt Mama and made her cry. Would you like that? Her mouth trembled, and she tried not to cry.
If she cried, Mama might guess she had been eavesdropping and then she would be angry too. We will. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! Which scene do you feel best shows how Angel was resigned to relying on no one but herself?
What events caused her to do so? Why do you think she never cried out to God? He feels pity for the weak and the needy, and he will rescue them.
He will save them from oppression and from violence, for their lives are precious to him. You will clench your fist against my angry enemies! Your power will save me. And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you.
Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
After you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it…. By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.
Arabic, Ophir Printers and Publishers. Chinese Complex Taiwan , Spring International. Croatian, Znanje. Danish, Scandinavia Publishing House. Dutch, Uitgeverij KOK. German, Gerth Medien. Indonesian, Penerbit Gandum Mas. Italian, BE Edizioni. Korean, Gimm-Young Publishers. Macedonian, Matica Makedonska. Norwegian, Lunde Forlag. Polish, Szaron. They instead accept her, and Miriam, the eldest daughter, forms a strong bond with Sarah.
One day, Sarah finally reveals to Michael that Duke forcibly sterilized her and that she can never have children. Knowing how much Michael hopes to be a father, she runs away again, hoping that Michael will marry Miriam and be happy. This time, Michael does not chase after her. As she picks through the debris, Duke appears behind her and takes her to his home.
Trapped in his mansion, Sarah is told that she must start working as a prostitute once more. He takes her before a crowd of baying men. Sarah is terrified. She sings a hymn on the stage, and when she falters, an elderly man at the back of the crowd joins her. He offers to lead her out of the establishment and Sarah agrees, but first she collects the young girls Duke has been raping. Axle, Sarah, and the two young girls are led through the crowd, who quickly surmise what Duke has been doing.
Axle takes Sarah to his home, introduces her to his family, and welcomes her to stay. Meanwhile, Paul and Miriam marry. Michael waits for Sarah to return. Miriam instructs Paul to find Sarah, even though she knows that he loathes her. He reluctantly agrees and begins to search California. At the same time, Sarah realizes that her true calling is to help prostitutes escape their former ways and find respectable work.
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