I don't normally read fiction -- I tend to stick to history, biography, and theology. I do not read Christian fiction. However, Redeeming Love is worth reading. It is the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer retold in Gold Rush California. If you do not know the story, Hosea was a prophet who was told by God to marry a prostitute, Gomer. It was a picture of God and Israel. God set Israel apart for Himself, but Israel chose to worship other gods. This was Israel's adultery. God made Hosea live out what was going on with his people. The book of Hosea is only a few chapters long and the real story is only found in the first three chapters. You get the facts, but not the back story or the anguish felt by Hosea when his wife left him to go back to the business that she knew. Hosea had to buy back his bride. It reminds us the lengths that Jesus took to redeem the Church. Redeeming Love is heartbreaking. We meet this little girl whose mother is in love with a man who she can never have because he is already married. She is a prostitute, but she has this dream of a quiet life in a cottage with rose bushes. The mother dies at a young age and leaves her little girl behind. Having no real family, she is sold into prostitution at the age of eight! EIGHT! It blows my mind that anyone could look at an EIGHT year old as a sexual object. Angel finds herself linked to this man named Duke who likes little girls. Angel believes wholeheartedly that she was a mistake and ought not to have been born. She believes that it is all her fault. As she grows up she turns the abuse she endured into the using of the same men. Instead of her being abused she would use them to get what she wanted. She was good at what she did. We meet Angel in what appears to be a truck stop for gold rushers. A town named Pair-A-Dice. a saloon and a brothel are the only places of interests in this town. whiskey, gambling, and women. We also meet a christian man named Michael Hosea ( Christian fiction is cheesy, I know.) He sees her on the street, and God tells him to marry her. He pays to see her and talk to her numerous times. Every time he offers to take her away from the brothel and offers her a great life as his wife. Every time she declines. She is used to her life. It's familiar. She knows what to expect. After all, she had been doing it since she was eight. At this point, I questioned Michael. He kept saying her loved her and offered marriage. But did her really know her or was he just obeying God. I guess those meetings with her was their "courtship", but it was all him. She wanted NOTHING to do with him. She even passed him off to another girl at one point. I don't want this to be me retelling the story, you will have to read it to find out what happens. I do, however, want to say that I had to put this book down and scream more than once. I screamed at Angel for not letting Michael steal her away and give her the cottage and the rose bushes on the very first night he came to talk with her. I screamed at her when she left him and the cottage and the rose bushes. I screamed at her mother for making her feel that it was her fault her father didn't stay. keeping the baby costs her her dream relationship. I screamed at Angel's pimps and bodyguards who treated her like a slave. Promised her the hope of her share, but charged her more than she would ever earn as room and board. The people who I screamed most at were the men in her life. Her absentee father who didn't even know his own daughter when she was offered to him as a play thing. and Duke who damaged her more than anyone else. The name changes in this book are significant. She was born Sarah - which means Princess in Hebrew. Then she was called Angel by those who abused her the most. she was dead inside. vacant. Michael quickly named her Mara which means bitter. She was taught to pleasure men at the sake of her own happiness, so when Michael called her Tirzah which means delight. It drove her crazy. It just pushed her away from him even more. Michael changed her name to Amanda which means loved or lovable. ( I had to look this one up because I just thought it was just a normal everyday name that Michael could introduced her as. Angel was a common name for prositiutes.) Calling her lovable was significant because no one ever loved her -- they just used her. Angel returned as she became a Christian and helped to rescue other young girls that were sex slaves as well. Finally, at the end of the story Angel was buried Sarah - the mother of many. This book could be written in present day and still have the same impact. It's a story of the horrors of sin and the death and decay it brings. It is also a story of how the power of God's love can restore and heal. Redeeming a broken and shattered life and making it whole again. It's not about Michael going into a brothel and taking Angel and giving her a "normal life" of home and family. It's about God one by one healing every hurt in Angel's life so that she could learn that it's okay to accept love. It is a story of how God worked. ` | 
