Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally, they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. If you’re continuing with WOW, feel free to link those up as well! Find out more here

If you enjoy Biblical fiction and have not yet read Mesu Andrews, run to the bookstore and pick up one of her books. I can’t wait for her May 2022 release.

About the Book

One of the Bible’s most notorious women longs for a love she cannot have in this captivating novel from the award-winning author of Isaiah’s Legacy.

“Mesu Andrews yet again proves her mastery of weaving a rich and powerful biblical story!”—Roseanna M. White, author of A Portrait of Loyalty

Before she is Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika is the daughter of a king and the wife of a prince. She rules the isle of Crete alongside her mother in the absence of their seafaring husbands. But when tragedy nearly destroys Crete, Zuleika must sacrifice her future to save the Minoan people she loves.

Zuleika’s father believes his robust trade with Egypt will ensure Pharaoh’s obligation to marry his daughter, including a bride price hefty enough to save Crete. But Pharaoh refuses and gives her instead to Potiphar, the captain of his bodyguards: a crusty bachelor twice her age, who would rather have a new horse than a Minoan wife.

Abandoned by her father, rejected by Pharaoh, and humiliated by Potiphar’s indifference, Zuleika yearns for the homeland she adores. In the political hotbed of Egypt’s foreign dynasty, her obsession to return to Crete spirals into deception. When she betrays Joseph—her Hebrew servant with the face and body of the gods—she discovers only one love is worth risking everything.

Biblical fiction is not a genre I read often. Although, I am aware there are some fabulous authors who write in this time period (Tessa Afshar, Mesu Andrews, and Connilyn Cossette all come to mind). Can you fathom the amount of research that goes into these books?

In My Opinion

While reading Mesu Andrews’s new release, I hurt and fell in love with a little girl named Ishma. As that girl struggles with her fears of soldiers and of being alone, forges a friendship with a boy who will one day become king, and discovers a new family with the prophet Isaiah, I got to visit Old Testament Jerusalem for a time.

Isaiah’s Daughter takes a handful of Scripture verses and gives readers a more rounded (fictional) account of the life these people lived. It’s a reminder that King Hezekiah, Queen Hephzibah, and Isaiah all lived lives outside of the few details recorded.

Mesu Andrews

Can’t Wait Wednesday: Potiphar’s Wife by Mesu Andrews

About the Book

Isaiah’s Daughter by Mesu Andrews (Review)

In My Opinion