(I received a free copy of this book from Moody Publishers, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I know the story of Ruth reasonably well, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there was enough to the story to make a novel out of it. Still, when I saw this book on NetGalley, I was instantly intrigued to see where the author would go with it.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I was pulled into the storyline right from the start and I really appreciated how the author used the people from the story of Ruth to write interesting, well-rounded characters who I found myself truly caring about.
I liked the fact that the author expanded on the story of Ruth, while keeping true to the core elements. I really liked how believable and realistic the relationship forming between Ruth and Boaz was. In the account in the Bible, there doesn’t seem to be much emotion involved… so I was really happy to see them spend time together and feelings develop on both sides. There were, of course, the normal misunderstandings that there always are in romance… but even though some things were cliches, I felt they were utilised in a good way.
It’s probably not very surprising that I really liked the faith aspects in this book. It was nice to see how strong Boaz’s and Ruth’s faith was, even despite the hardships both had suffered.
One of the other things I really liked was that, as well as the romance between her and Boaz, Ruth also formed relationships with other people. I particularly liked Dinah… she grew on me; and I felt sorry for her with how Adin reacted to her. (Though when he finally came to his senses, I found myself smiling). And I liked how, even though she became nicer, Dinah still kept to her personality.
I felt that the author did a really good job of showing the culture, without making the detail boring. I felt that there was clearly a lot of research that had gone into this book. I also liked the link-ins with David in the epilogue.
Despite knowing how this book would end, it was an interesting journey to that point. I really enjoyed reading this book and I would definitely read more books by this author in the future.
Ink of Blood 