liz curtis higgs thorn in my heart series

She orchestrates her son’s deception in order to obtain his father’s blessing (and with it, his favor, inheritance, and launch for success in life). The beginning of the story centers around a young man named Jamie (playing the Jacob part of the story of Jacob and Esau), and his ambitious, conniving mother (playing the part of Rebekah exactly as in scripture). But when I couldn’t figure out what an italicized word meant from the context, it frequently interrupted the flow of the story.

At the end I discovered a glossary of Scottish word meanings that I probably would have referred to many times had I known it was there. Please, especially don’t make me wade through strange italicized words and dialects. I care about the characters, what they think, how they base their decisions, what motivates them and what happens to them, and don’t like to be distracted from the characters for long. In historical novels, I like to learn a little about the setting, customs, history, landscape, plants, herbs and clothing, but just a little. I have to admit, it was hard for me to stick with for the first ten or so chapters, because it moved so slowly. It is not set in Bible times and places, however it is set in eighteenth-century Scotland, and is filled with customs and culture from that time. This is a historical novel based on a story in the book of Genesis in the Bible. What made me pick up this book was the message on the back cover, which asked a question: Could she learn to live without love for the rest of her life? I wanted to know how this book resolved that question, and I especially wanted to know how it resolved it from a Christian viewpoint. I love to revisit books, especially novels, the way I love to re-live moments in my life, which is why I have a ridiculous amount of journals, scrapbooks and photo albums.

I think I started writing them because when I find a particularly inspiring, thought-provoking, well-written book, I can’t bear to lose the memories of the experience. I have been perusing my binder full of book reviews, which I’ve been writing for the past 20 years or so.

Liz curtis higgs thorn in my heart series