I've read and heard the familiar Bible story about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well many times, but usually didn't think any further about the reasons why she would be at the well in the hottest part of the day, alone, or why she had so many husbands. This book gave me one possible backstory on the Samaritan woman.
In this book, Marah is married off to an older man at 13 years old by a greedy aunt. As time passes, each of Marah's husbands uses her for his own purposes, then dies or leaves her to fend for herself. With each successive widowhood, the people of Marah's town, Shechem, scorn her more. Marah tries to accept what happens to her as God's will, and makes the best of each new phase of her life, as well as hang on to her faith in "the God Who Sees Me."
The story was compelling, and I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Since the book is broken up into sections based on the various people in Marah's life, there were good resting points. There were occasional jarring jumps forward in time, but the pacing was generally good. The details about Samaritan life in Jesus' time were very well done, and I quickly felt immersed in Marah's life each time I picked the book up to continue reading. The only things that felt forced were the inclusions of Jesus' healing the 10 lepers and the Good Samaritan in the same plotline. Overall, this was a good Biblical fiction title to add to this growing genre.
