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Francine Rivers� telling of the story of Ruth is my favorite in the series thus far. The Lineage of Grace series is a collection of Biblical fiction biographical novellas about 5 women in the lineage of Jesus Christ. The first book, Unveiled: Tamar, though 192 pages, felt more like a sketch of the woman whose life is account in one chapter of Scripture, Genesis 38. Rahab’s story (Unashamed: Lineage of Grace #2) features in Joshua Chapter 2-6, giving Rivers more to work with. Though Unashamed: Rahab is the only one of the five novellas to win the Christy Award, I found it a challenging read.

Ruth is also covered in four chapters of Scripture, but her story is accounted in its own book, bearing her name. I’m unsure whether it was Rivers� presentation or the familiarity of Ruth that made Unshaken a delight. While the two previous characters seem to burst into Rivers� narrative, somewhat fully formed, Ruth is presented as a recent widow trying to navigate the dark mire of grief, the spiritual life of her native Moab in contrast to the God of Israel her marriage exposed her to, the needs of her aging mother-in-law and her future prospects in life. Consistent with the Biblical account, Ruth is narrowly focused on survival when she and Naomi straggle into Bethlehem. It is only as her physical needs for food, work, and stability are met that Ruth’s perspective, directed by Naomi, expands to notice Boaz. I appreciated how Rivers developed the maturation of the characters as relationship between Ruth and Boaz dawns, as well as the role Naomi played.

However, I was� troubled?... is too strong a word. While it is clear that Naomi and Boaz were both children of Bethlehem grown to adulthood, I didn’t see the connections drawn by Rivers in Unshaken in the Biblical account. The artist’s creative license flows through that aspect of the story and the disturbance was not enough to ruin Unshaken, especially as these hypotheticals were not long dwelt upon. Additionally, I thought there was a missed opportunity to develop how Boaz� connection to the Canaanite Rahab would have shaped his life and his openness to the Moabitess, Ruth. Though perhaps because there is a genealogical time gap issue, Rivers chose to forgo the matter? If you want to read more about the genealogy, see


Unwinding of the past of Naomi’s family and simultaneous weaving of the future in Rivers articulated of this well-known story made Unshaken my favorite of the series so far.

As throughout the Lineage of Grace series, Unshaken: Ruth is followed by a 5-day Bible study, which would make an interesting book club discussion. Due to the familiarity of the book of Ruth, I personally didn’t spend as much time in the Bible study as I did previous installments. But as far as I noticed, the Bible study was on par with other installments.

There’s more! My reading project is Francine Rivers Lineage of Grace series, followed by Sons of Encouragement. The next novella is:
Unspoken: Bathsheba (Lineage of Grace #4), Rivers, 2001
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