Description:
California's gold country, 1850. A time when men sold their
souls for a bag of gold and women sold their bodies for a place to sleep.
Angel expects nothing from men but betrayal. Sold into
prostitution as a child she survives by keeping her hatred alive. And what she
hates most are the men who use her, leaving her empty and dead inside.
Then she meets Michael Hosea. A man who seeks his Father's
heart in everything, Michael obeys God's call to marry Angel and to love her
unconditionally. Slowly, day by day, he defies Angel's every bitter
expectation, until despite her resistance, her frozen heart begins to thaw.
But with her unexpected softening come overwhelming feelings
of unworthiness and fear. And so Angel runs. Back to the darkness, away from
her husband's pursuing love, terrified of the truth she no longer can deny: Her
final healing must come from the One who loves her even more than Michael does
... the One who will never let her go.
My Opinion:
I loved the idea of the story and that it was a retelling
from the bible, however I very much disliked the way the book was written. I
cannot stand third-person omniscient, and the switching between characters
without a break to represent the change in person. I kept getting lost, not
knowing who said what, so I did a LOT of rereading segments. Which, after a
while, gets really tiring.
I also have a hard time believing that people can be as
emotional as these characters. Some of the things they said to each other were
sweet, but totally and completely ludicrous. Nobody talks like these people!
They also were all like mind-readers! They all somehow knew what each other
were thinking, and it drew me kind of crazy. The character didn't have to do
anything or have any tell for the other character to know something was up. I
literally think that almost everything
happened out of convenience.
Another thing I didn't like was how sexual Angel was. Yes, I
understand she was a prostitute, but what even? She didn't seem like she wanted
out of the business that much to me throughout most of the book. I know that
she was supposed to feel inadequate and unworthy of Micheal's affection, so she
continued to run away, but what was with all these scenes of her stripping down
to nothing for no reason to 'please' Micheal one last time before she left? I
felt like the author was trying to force in as many sexual scenes into the book
as she could even though they were completely unnecessary. I like romance
novels, but the romance has to be for a reason and make sense in the story.
Sorry to say that this book was a bit of a struggle to get
through, there were things I liked about the book, but they were little and far
between. I just don't feel like their was much depth to the story.
Stars: 2 1/2