Judah's Wife by Angela Hunt

Leah has had a hard life.  Her father is abusive and she has watched her mother suffer at his hands for years. When Judah seeks Leah's hand in marriage she sees it as a way of escape from her home life.  Judah's family is nothing like her own and Judah is a kind and loving husband.  For the first time in her life Leah has peace in her life, but that peace is short lived.

The king has decreed that all Jews are to conform to Syrian law or risk death for following the laws of Moses.  Judah's father resists the decree and he does so without shame.  He does not hide the families prayer time, or things such as circumcising their children. He does them open and without shame.  Soon war breaks out and Judah's father commands that Judah pick up his sword and fight.  Leah struggles with her husbands decision to fight.  All she wants is peace in her life.  She will soon learn that love sometimes requires courage and sacrifice.

I really enjoyed the first several chapters of this book.  I loved the story line of Judah and Leah, but after they were married and the fighting started it got boring and drawn out for me.  Those areas of the book seemed too long and detailed.  I know it was an important part of the story, but it seemed to consume too much of the story.  The love story of Judah and Leah was beautiful and I found myself skimming over a lot of the other drawn out details just to get to the parts that I found more interest in.

I did enjoy that this was a biblically based story with fictional characters.  I thought it was a really nice portrayal of history during that time period and the author definitely did some great research.

***Thanks to Bethany House Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.