I am so excited to see the variety of settings and plot lines in Christian fiction that I have been reading lately! "The Call of Zulina" is a perfect example of originality in writing. The author, Kay Marshall Strom, got the idea for some of the main characters when she was writing a biography of John Newton. She then developed this amazing story about Grace Winslow, the daughter of a white English sea captain and a black African princess. They are living in Africa, but Grace never really sees life outside their home (or compound). Consequently she has no concept of what is really going on around her, especially the fact that her father and mother run one of the largest slaving houses in the area. When she realizes that her parents are going to marry her off to a horrible man that she detests, just because he has good business holdings, she decides to run away. The only problem is she runs right into slavery of her own, imprisonment and then when her captors try and ransom her, she finds abandonment at the hands of her parents. She must decide which blood runs stronger in her veins, the English or the African. And she must come to terms with the fact that she will never be accepted by either side, especially her mother and father. When the slave revolt happens, where will she be?

This story was so original that I absolutely couldn't assume or predict anything - I loved that! The hardest part of it for me as a mother of six was the sheer evilness of her own mother. Revenge runs so strongly in her veins that she doesn't hesitate to not only leave her daughter for dead, but she wants to personally make sure that she and any she cares about are all dead. I would say that is not realistic, except that it makes perfect sense in the context of her own upbringing and how her own father sacrificed her to a white man for his own advances.

I am really looking forward to book #2 in this series. Great historical fiction in a new setting and with a new story!

Share/Like this Review?