Book Review: Rebekah by Jill Eileen Smith

I love discovering a great new author, and that's exactly what I did when I picked up Jill Eileen Smith's new release, Rebekah.

Rebekah is based off the Biblical character in the Book of Genesis, and is the second in The Wives of the Patriarch Series. Rebekah was the woman chosen by God to be the wife of Isaac, who was the Promised Child. She became the mother of Jacob, the man who would later be called Israel and would be the Father of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

After her father's death, Rebekah is left at the mercy of her shrewd brother, Laban. He is responsible for finding Rebekah a suitable husband, and she is afraid he will choose the wrong one. When she is finally given in marriage to her cousin, Isaac, Rebekah is delighted to find the match God intended.

Rebekah and Isaac fall in love immediately, and revel in each other's nearness. But when their marriage is challenged by the birth of their twin sons, and the prophesy Rebekah has been given about them, misunderstanding, betrayal and disappointment follow. Rebekah and Isaac are left to wonder if their love for one another will withstand the trial.

What I loved about Rebekah is how Jill was able to fill in the blanks within the Biblical account. In the Book of Genesis, we're given the basic details of the real story of Rebekah. To bring the story to life, Jill used wonderful cultural details, vivid imagery to capture the setting, pertinent background information to help us understand the motivation of the principle characters and historical context to place us in the hearts and minds of Rebekah and Isaac.

This story is rich with secondary characters who play major roles in the telling of the tale. In some books, a large cast of characters can bog down the story, but I appreciated the diverse personalities in Rebekah and had no trouble distinguishing who was who.

I enjoyed reading Rebekah's story, and I look forward to reading Jill's other Biblical Fiction accounts of the women who played significant roles in the Bible.

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Available February 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.