Carrie Fancett Pagels Reviews "The Preacher's Bride" by Jody Hedlund

The Preacher's Bride

The Preacher’s Bride

by Jody Hedlund 
(Bethany House, October 2010)

I give this novel four stars. A very good book.

Why I listened to this: Another writer friend, Gina Wellborn, a preacher’s wife, highly recommended this book and gave it a glowing review.  This book is also set during a time period that I enjoy.

Formats: I listened to this as an audiobook that I downloaded through www.audible.com  and it was a fairly long book.  Also available as a softcover, a hardcover large print book, and in CDs! 

Caution: Violence, including a whipping scene with so many lashes that most people would have died from the injuries. Unfortunately, on audio one cannot just skip over the scene.  Some may object to some of the sensuality, but it is appropriate to the story line.

Genre: Historical Inspirational Fiction, (debut novel), with romantic elements.

Bibliotherapy aspects: Feelings of unworthiness, persecution, trauma, and grief.

The hero’s daughter is blind.

Other themes: Stepparenting, being obedient to God’s will in one’s life.

This book is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Preachers-Bride-Jody-Hedlund/dp/0764208322

This book is set in the late 1600’s during the transitional time after Cromwell’s “reign” in England. Puritans’ lives are disrupted by the change in political power.  This is a dark story but with hope shining through. It is based loosely on the story of John Bunyan’s second marriage.  There are few stories set during this time as inspirational fiction and for that reason alone was worth listening to. One senses that this author’s voice will continue to grow even stronger in her subsequent works. Quite an accomplishment in this debut novel! 

Audio comments: The narrator sounded very fatigued throughout much of the narration, which was somewhat off-putting.