Book Review: Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

I wanted to start off this blog on a radical note by recommending, Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, a novel I found to be a superb read (outside of the Bible...of course).


A friend of mine highly recommended that I read Redeeming Love. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how I would take to reading - as far as I can recall - my first romantic novel, but I took her up on her recommendation.

Well, I just finished reading this awesome story of God's unconditional love, and I found that from cover to cover, I had a hard time putting this book down. This was not what I imagined a romantic novel to be like. In fact, the story contained in the pages of Redeeming Love is the same story contained in the Bible of God's unending love for each and every one of us.

Rivers does an exceptional job of retelling the story of Hosea using characters set around the mid-1800s during the Gold Rush. The deep emotions and struggles of a prostitute and a farmer come to life in this book and reflect God's forgiving and redeeming character that never changes no matter how unworthy our lives may seem.

If you haven't read this novel yet, I highly suggest you pick up a copy for yourself.

On a further note, if you're not familiar with the story of Hosea, I suggest you take a look at the Book of Hosea in the Old Testament of the Bible before you read Redeeming Love. Hosea is classified as a Minor Prophet and contains 14 chapters. As with reading any book of the Bible, I recommend that you find a translation you can understand (at least to start out with).