Ruth’s Redemption
February 1, 2012
The Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing
Ruth’s Redemption Moody Publishers/Lift Every Voice (February 1, 2012)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Marlene Banks has worked 30+ years combined in nursing and the business arena. Her goal as a writer is to create inspiring, gripping and realistic stories with an emphasis on African American literature. She believes her gift and desire to write is from God and desires to use it to fulfill His purposes. Marlene lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she is a member of Bethel Deliverance International Church.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Set in the 1800s, Ruth’s Redemption, is an unusual depiction of the lives of slaves and free blacks in pre-Civil War America. Bo, a main character, was educated while a slave. He was given his freedom and now owns a farm buying slaves for the sole purpose of giving them their freedom.
Bo is also a man of God and widower whose life is destined to change when he meets the proud and hard-hearted slave girl, Ruth. Ruth has known nothing but servitude and brutality since being separated from her mother at age thirteen. Purchased and sold primarily for breeding, Ruth struggles to adjust to life outside of bondage. She wants no part of Bo’s Godly devotion. Yet Bo is unlike any man she’s known and her experiences with him will leave her forever changed.
A gripping slave era novel, Ruth’s Redemption is a story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. Set against the backdrop of the Nat Turner Rebellion in Tidewater, Virginia, this novel shines the light of God’s unconditional love in the darkness of a culture’s cruel socially accepted inhumanity.
If you would like to read the first chapter of Ruth’s Redemption, go HERE
Sally Says: What piqued my interest in the book was the story set during the Nat Turner slave revolt and the viewpoint of freed slaves. Ruth has been through a lot and has that hardened shell that, while understandable, has her keeping everyone good and bad at bay. So I expected the love of Bo Peace, the freed slave who bought her to give her her freedom, to soften her.
While the dialogue, written to reflect the character’s dialect, made the book hard to read at times, the plot was nothing like I expected, and that was the highlight of the book. Readers who enjoy historicals set around the Civil War will find Ruth’s Redemption an enjoyable read.