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** spoiler alert ** I found this book to be a bit over the top. It reminded me of a soap opera. I also couldn't get over the anti-feminist vibe that I got from the book.

First of all, Julia, a young teenage girl, is forced to marry an older middle aged man. Whatever compassion we may have of her is quickly evaporated because she is unwilling to be a "dutiful" wife and tries to get out of having sex with her husband whenever she can. Her husband is portrayed as a good man and the reader is supposed ignore the fact that unwanted sex is rape because he means well. Julia eventually runs off and he chases after her, falls from his horse and dies. Julia feels mostly relieved, but Rivers never attempts to help the reader feel any compassion for her. We are only supposed to see how selfish Julia is. If that wasn't bad enough, Rivers writes the antagonist as a feminist who believes that women should have a right to make their own decisions and control their own property. Julia's friendship with this woman leads her to get into an abusive relationship where she aborts her child when she gets pregnant and eventually murders her husband. At the end of the book, she sends Hadassah to the gladiator pit at the end of the book. Before that, Marcus sexually assaults Hadassah, planning to rape her, but relents when she passes out. When Hadassah wakes up she tells Marcus that she knew he wouldn't rape her because he is too "honorable."

Wake up ladies! A man who sexually assaults you is not honorable! Feminism is not evil. In fact, I may even be so bold to say that Christ himself was a feminist. I don't understand why the conservative evangelical church is so dead set against feminism. I think it really hurts our Christian witness.

I really don't have any desire to continue on with the series.