A Passionate Hope: Hannah's Story (Daughters of the Promised Land #4) by Jill Eileen Smith: A Book Review!

A Passionate Hope: Hannah’s Story (Daughters of the Promised Land #4)
Author: Jill Eileen Smith
Genre: Christian, Historical Fiction, Biblical Fiction
Publisher: Revell
Release Date: 2018
Pages: 370
Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis: Hannah and her husband, Elkanah, share a deep and abiding love, for each other, for their God, and for his tabernacle at Shiloh. Greatly disturbed by the corruption of the priests, they long for restoration and pray for a deliverer. But nothing changes as the years pass. Years that also reveal Hannah to be barren.

Pressured by his family to take another wife, Elkanah marries Peninnah, who quickly begins to bear children. Disgraced and taunted by her husband's new wife, Hannah turns again to prayers that seem doomed to go unanswered. Do her devotion and kindness in the face of Peninnah's cruelty count for nothing? Why does God remain silent and indifferent to her pleas?

Travel back to the dusty streets of Shiloh with an expert guide as Jill Eileen Smith brings to life a beloved story of hope, patience, and deliverance that shows that even the most broken of relationships can be restored.

My Review: A Passionate Hope tells the story of Hannah, who is the mother of Samuel. Hannah has married the love of her life, Elkanah. She believes that she will have a happy life for him and bear him a son. However, Hannah’s dreams do not come true. After years of being barren, Elkanah is pressured by his family to take another wife. Hannah is forced to watch in humiliation as the other wife bares her husband’s children while she has none. Hannah questions why God will not grant her deepest desire? Hannah embarks on a deep journey of her faith and devotion to God.

I have always been intrigued by Hannah’s story. She is one of the strongest believers in the Bible. She never once lost her faith in God. In A Passionate Hope, Mrs. Smith focuses on Hannah’s long years of suffering. The novel begins when Hannah is young and optimistic. She marries the man she loves and believes that she will soon give him children. Hannah is a very sympathetic figure. I felt her despair when she is forced to watch her husband marry another and now the other wife gives her husband what she cannot. Penniah was not a kind woman to her. She would often laugh and torment Hannah. Therefore, I empathized with Hannah’s sorrow. However, Hannah’s trials made her stronger. While she did question God, Hannah never wavered in her faith. She never gave up hope that she would bear Elkanah a son.

Overall, this novel is about faith, trials, and hope. The message of this book is to never give up. It is because of Hannah’s persistence and trust in God that she was finally granted a son. I thought all the characters were well-written. The story is richly detailed, and it was a very faithful retelling. There were some repetitive scenes in A Passionate Hope, and a few parts of the book read like a soap opera. However, Jill Eileen Smith proves why she is one of the top authors of Biblical fiction! Mrs. Smith astounds us again with another uplifting read! A Passionate Hope will thrill fans of The Red Tent, Rachel and Leah, and The Pharaoh's Daughter.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Interview with Meihan Boey

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing author, Meihan Boey. She is the author of The Formidable Miss Cassidy , which is the first novel in the Miss Cassidy trilogy. The first novel is about how a Scottish governess helps her employer's family who is haunted by a malevolent spirit. She has recently released, The Enigmatic Madam Ingram , which is the second novel in the trilogy. In this interview, we discussed not only her latest novel, but also Singaporean mythology. Thank you, Mrs. Boey! What inspired you to write The Formidable Miss Cassidy ? Did you know it would be a trilogy before you started writing or did it form while you were writing it? Yes, I did know I wanted to create a trilogy - I just didn’t know at the start whether or not I would be able to get there! The Formidable Miss Cassidy started life as a COVID project, sent as a short story to a little Canadian indie press. Because I didn’t think a typical Canadian audience was go...

Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England by John Carmi Parsons: A Book Review

Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England Author: John Carmi Parsons Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Book Release Date: 1998 Pages: 388 Source: Personal Collection Synopsis: Medievalist feminist studies' early concentration on the lives of prominent women has more recently given way to an interest in their less exalted sisters. Historians have seemingly avoided the careers of medieval queens, creatures of romance and legend, women who enjoyed rank and wealth merely as a consequence of birth or marriage. A renewed interest in such women has, however, followed the opening of new avenues to the study of women and power in the Middle Ages. That the lives of these women will reward reconsideration has been amply proven in the works of such historians as Pauline Stafford and Janet Nelson. Eleanor of Castile studies the wife of Edward I of England, a woman eulogized since the sixteenth century as a model of ...

The Enigmatic Madam Ingram (Miss Cassidy #2) by Meihan Boey: A Book Review

The Enigmatic Madam Ingram (Miss Cassidy #2) Author: Meihan Boey Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal Publisher: Harper Perennial Book Release Date: September 8, 2026 Pages: 512 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: Miss Cassidy returns to nineteenth-century Singapore to help solve another dazzling supernatural mystery in this follow-up to the award-winning novel that The Guardian called a “classic-in-waiting.” When Letty Ingram arrives in Singapore in 1906, she is an enigma even unto herself. To the residents of the small Scottish village where she lives, she is a wealthy, half-Malay recluse who emerges from her home only for walks with her great beast of a hound. To Letty, she is a woman trying to lift a curse that causes her lose consciousness and wake up in strange places—sometimes, with blood on her hands—and no memory of what occurred. Letty ...

History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

Search This Blog