Recent Reads {Love Amid the Ashes}

Love Amid the Ashes by Mesu Andrews - Somewhere recently I saw something by this author recommended as a must-read.  This particular title is a fictionalized telling of the story of Job from the Old Testament.  The twist is that the story also involves Jacob's daughter, Dinah.  The premise is that Job is a descendant of Esau that has faithfully followed El Shaddai, and he brings Dinah back to his household intending for her to be a wife for one of his sons.  (As a refresher, Dinah was the young woman raped by the prince of Shechem who then desired to marry her, but her brothers tricked the Shechemites and murdered them.  The Bible doesn't say much about Dinah after this event - nothing that I'm aware of other than mentioning that she went to Egypt with all of Jacob's family when they were reunited with Joseph.)  Upon their arrival in Job's home, the servants start coming with the dreadful news that all Job's flocks and herds have been stolen or destroyed, and then the real blow - that a house has collapsed, killing all of Job's children.

I have not seen many novels that attempt to tell Job's story, so this one intrigued me.  I have also often wondered what became of Dinah after Shechem.  Bringing the two characters together as this story does seemed far-fetched to me at first, but Andrews tells such a compelling tale by giving character and personality to Job and his friends that I was completely drawn in by the story itself.  Adding background and cultural setting to the account was very valuable, and the chronology and the dialogue between Job and his advisors remains faithful to the Biblical account.  I do wish that I'd read the Author's note at the end before I read the book, because that note explains some of the extra-biblical traditions and references that give some basis to believe that Dinah and Job did have a connection.  Apparently some ancient rabbinical traditions identify Dinah as Job's wife, so at the very least it places them in the timeline together.