First let me just say, wow. I can't even gather my thoughts in a coherent manner to write the beautiful review I want to give this book. I'd first just like to say thank you so much to Worthy Publishing and Joan Wolf for providing me with a free copy of this book to read and for allowing me the honor of participating in the Daughter of Jerusalem blog tour. I'm not trying to suck up (lol), but this book has truly been such a blessing in my life. When I was first asked to participate in the blog tour- this is my first one- I thought "wow, this will really be awkward if I don't like the book!". Thankfully, that wasn't a problem at all. Not only did I like the book, but I LOVED the book.
Daughter of Jerusalem is the story of Mary Magdalene, who is probably one the top five most famous women from the Bible. I'm thinking maybe Eve and the other Mary are the top two. So anyways, the book begins during Mary's childhood as she is being brought to live in the home of her Aunt Leah, who resides with Lord Benjamin- a wealthy man in the city of Magdala. At the home of Lord Benjamin, Mary and Lord Benjamin's son, Daniel, fall in love. They eventually earn the blessings of Lord Benjamin to marry. However, Lord Benjamin is a ssssssss-snake and has other plans for Mary. Thanks to her beauty he can receive a large bride price for her and that's what he does. She is forced to marry a man who she doesn't know, nor is in love with. From there, she enters into an affair which her new husband agrees to for business reasons. Mary is definitely ashamed of herself and doesn't know how her sins could ever be forgiven. Which brings us to Jesus.
Let me just stop there to say, the book was GREAT before Jesus arrives on the scene. But, when Jesus arrives it's like this beautiful moment and I just couldn't put the book down from there. I mean, OH MY GOODNESS. It was awesome. Words don't even describe how much I loved this part of the book. Literally, I don't even know how to describe it in fancy-blog-review-ways. It's just like, hearing a first person account- even if it was fictionalized- of Jesus as he walked on the earth and among regular people, like you and I... it was such a gift. Reading Mary's experiences and life as a follower of the true Messiah was an inspiring and truly uplifting experience for me.
I don't know how historically or Biblically accurate the book is. I am far from a Biblical scholar, but I know Mary is often portrayed and said to be a prostitute. In this book she is not, she is a woman who has sinned- yes- but not a hooker. I really loved that. I think it's safe to assume that because of the time the Bible was written in, like Eve before her, Mary M. probably got a bad rap just because she was a woman. But, again I'm not scholar in this area.
Whether accurate or not, this book is truly beautiful and I must say that I just love that it's told in a first person narrative. I didn't know if I'd like this book because I've only had so-so experiences with Biblical Fiction in the past, but thanks to this book I'll be hungrily devouring more from this author and genre. This book gets 5 out of 5 stars!
I was provided with a free copy of this book courtesy of Worthy Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
Giveaway
Worthy Publishing has so very kindly provided me with two additional copies to share with two very fortunate winners. I pray that whoever wins will be blessed and inspired by this book as I was. Please enter using the form below.
Note: I can only ship to addresses within the US.
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