Reckless Love by Kate Goodwin Review

 

Reckless Love by Kate Goodwin was a very powerful, emotional story of redemption and forgiveness. Amina is a young lady who always felt invisible and unloved. After making a mistake, she finds herself pregnant and alone. Melissa is the wife of a pastor and wants to be that perfect pastor's wife, however, she has been unable to give her husband a son and heir, someone to take over the ministry. When Amina ends up in the sanctuary of their church, Melissa thinks this is an answer to her prayers. So, instead of helping an unwed expectant mother to HELP the mother, she helps Amina so they can adopt the child. 

This story is a modern retelling of the story of Hagar from the book of Genesis in the Bible. If one knows the story of how Abraham and Sarah decided to take God's promise of a son into their own hands, one will easily see the parallels. 

The story starts with Amina discovering she is pregnant and her running away from home, and Melissa discovering she has hit early menopause. After a brief time during Amina's pregnancy, it skips to the birth of the baby and the unique and complicated arrangement that is made between the young mother and the older couple. It then skips ahead again to when the child is a few years old and Melissa discovers a miracle has occured. The situation suddenly changes and Amina finds herself alone with her son, abandoned again. 

But there is still so much more of the story to come. A story where we see God working in both Amina's and Melissa's lives. A story of redemption and forgiveness. A story of knowing that, even when we find ourselves feeling alone and unloved, there is One who sees us and cares for us and is still working in our lives. 

I found myself in tears multiple times in this book. And I admit, I did NOT care for Melissa and even her husband for quite a bit of the book. And it made me wonder what I would have thought of Abraham and Sarah and the way they treated Hagar. I really loved the way the author was able to parallel this Bible story and make it a wondeful, contemporary retelling. 

I highly recommend this book.

I received an e-copy of this book as a member of the launch team and was not required to write a favorable review. These are my own honest thoughts.