Saturday Sisters: Novels about Sarah

  This week i've read these two Sarah novels off my shelf.  They are actually

rather similar, at least when read as i've done, simultaneously, one mostly upstairs and the other mostly downstairs, but there are some prominent differences.

  Both covers are lovely.  The cover of Cantleberry's book is more interesting.  Smith uses a photograph-like image, presumably faithfully following a features of a modern woman in Biblical costume.  Some of these cover images for her books look more modern than like the novel's heroine, but this totally works for Sarai. It bothers me ever so slightly that, on Sarah's Story, i can't tell which background young man is supposed to be represented  - Isaac?  Ishmael?  Eliezer?  Maybe Lot?  Not that it matters.  Slightly more disturbing is that somehow the woman looks more like i might expect Hagar to look:  more haughty than assured in her status as princess.

 In some ways, i felt Smith's book skipped a large part of the story. One of the key questions a novel about Sarah should answer is, how did she handle the offering of Isaac?
 And biographical novels traditionally end with the death of the subject, and Cantleberry handled that well.
  But on the other hand, Smith's chapter about Sodom's destruction was one of the most compelling i've ever read, regardless of the subject.  i loved the "but for the grace of God" emphasis of the chapter, going over Sarai's faltering faith throughout the story.
 Both authors quote Scripture liberally, often as a chapter or section head.
 
  i enjoyed & recommend both of them, though Smith's book will be far easier to find.

https://www.jilleileensmith.com/the-wives-of-the-patriarchs/
https://www.amazon.com/Sarahs-Story-Continued-Applied-Christianity/dp/0570038987
  Another Sarah book which i've previously enjoyed, though disinclined to seek it at this time, is Orson Scott Card's.   It is titled simply Sarah. i remember enjoying the first meeting of Abram and Sarai, when they were 10 and 20 years old.  The placement of these people is somewhat different than we may be used to seeing - if the two were truly halfsiblings, there would not have been such a first meeting. Perhaps he got that from the Book of Mormon, another source he used, or perhaps it's merely a different interpretation.  He does look at Scripture a bit loosely.  Still, the book is an enjoyable read.  And novels should always be taken a fiction, not completely factual.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/sarah.shtml