The Messenger

I signed up to be a review for Bethany House publishing about two months ago. You can sign up here. The first book I signed up to receive was "The Messenger" by Siri Mitchell.

The book is a historical fiction set during the Revolutionary War. I'm a huge fan of historical fiction, but I've never read a book set during this era. Here is the book description from Amazon.com. "Hannah Sunderland felt content in her embrace of the Quaker faith ...until her twin brother ran off and joined the army and ended up captured and in jail. Suddenly Hannah's world turns on end. She longs to bring her brother some measure of comfort in the squalid, frigid prison where he remains. But the Quakers believe they are not to take sides, not to take up arms. Can she sit by and do nothing while he suffers? Jeremiah Jones has an enormous task before him. Responsibility for a spy ring is now his, and he desperately needs access to the men in prison, whom they are seeking to free. A possible solution is to garner a pass for Hannah. But while she is fine to the eye, she holds only disdain for him--and agreeing would mean disobeying those she loves and abandoning a bedrock of her faith. With skill and sensitivity, Mitchell tells a story of two unlikely heroes seeking God's voice, finding the courage to act, and discovering the powerful embrace of love." I have to say that this book was so slow to start out with. I had a hard time keeping with it. If it were not for the fact that I was reviewing this book, I may not have finished. But.... I'm glad I did. The author did spend her sweet time setting the book up, but about 3/4 of the way through the book I found that I couldn't put it down. In fact, at the end of the book I was sad to see that it was over. I think she wrapped it up well though. The whole beginning of the book sets up who the characters are and how they are so different from each other, as well as some important parts of their past that will be brought up periodically throughout the book. The middle part focuses a lot on their love/hate relationship as well as how the whole spy thing is going. My favorite part of course is when it started getting good. That was at the end of the book when all of the scoot to the edge of your seat and don't put the book down stuff started to happen. Overall, it was very interesting and I'll be looking for more historical fiction based on this time period. I will also be looking for other books by this author to determine if she'll be an author that I will continue to read. *I did get the copy of this book for free, but otherwise I am not being paid for this review.