The Shadow Women

Rating:
Summary: Close...but no Cigar
Review: Angela Elwell Hunt is one of my favorite authors. I received this book for Christmas, and eagerly started reading it. However, I was somewhat disappointed.

Hunt is brilliant with character development, and she develops Merytamon, Miriam, and Zipporah with her usual vigor. The obvious and expected spiritual themes in this book are outstanding, inspirational, and Hunt delivers to her readers on these two qualities she always brings out in her stories.

My problem is with the pace of the book- very, very slow. We all know this Biblical story so well that, in reading a book about the women in Moses' life, I expected to hear a twist on the tale, new angles, new stories.

Well, I got some new angles for certain, but new stories? Hunt retells the entire life of Moses as we know it using the women in his life as narrators. Though I learned several new facts about life in Egyptian palaces and a possible, very different alternate history to the love story of Moses & Zipporah (let's just say the Ten Commandments is its polar opposite), I was expecting more twist and insight into the lives of the "shadow women".

I know that Hunt can in essence completely retell a biblical story through her series about Joseph, vizier of Egypt. But she didn't deliver here. Merytamon, Moses' mother, dies halfway through the book, leaving her perspective in the cold. Miriam is made out to be a cold-hearted, self centered, conniving old woman up until the last few chapters. The only parts I truly enjoyed reading were Zipporah's, and even hers were far too biblically repetitive.

In short, these are not the women of Moses as we know them. In fact, this book is more about the life of Moses and his human interactions with women who were around them then about the lives and stories of his mother, sister, and wife and their consequent interactions with HIM.

For all its spiritual insights, the book followed Moses too closely and left his women in the dust.

JK

Rating:
Summary: Beyond Moses were some amazing women
Review: Forget about Moses. His story has been told and retold. But the story of the enslavement and salvation of the Israelites from Egypt has never been told like this.

"Mists of Avalon" is brought to mind by this book. We see the familiar tale told this time through the eyes of the women who lived this story. The story is told by the Princess of Egypt whose barrenness terrified her until she found salvation in a Hebrew child, by Miriam whose enforced role as the protector of her family leads her to bitter self revelation and by Zipphorah whose love of a strange refugee from Egypt place this desert girl center stage in a drama written by a God she does not understand.

Marion Zimmer Bradley couldn't have done this saga better. Each woman's voice is distinctive and each character fully fleshed and developed. If you miss this book, you will miss a real gem.

Rating:
Summary: Another great read by an outstanding author!
Review: I am always eager to read a biblical story from a different point of view; to see the events unfold through the eyes of a participant that has never before been given a voice in the matter. In SHADOW WOMEN, you get to view the life of Moses through not one; not two; but three different witnesses: His Egyptian foster mother, Merytamon; his Midianite wife, Zapporah; and finally, his older sister, Miryam.

Merytomon is the daughter and newest wife of Pharaoh. She is barren, believing that one of the multitudinous gods of Egypt has stolen her womb out of jealousy. She knows that unless she produces a son for Pharaoh, she will be demoted from her most-favored-wife position and banished to his harem to live out her life amidst the myriad of wives who have lost the attention of their husband. After learning of the PharaohÕs decree that all Hebrew baby boys are to be sacrificed to the river god, she conspires to take one of these babies and present it to her husband as a gift from the god of the Nile.

In addition to the retelling of Moses rescue from the Nile and his Egyptian rearing, we are made privy to the unique life of one so close to the throne. MerytomonÕs love for Moses is touching and tragic as she suffers under the burden of her deception, knowing that the discovery of Moses true origin would very likely result in not only her death but the death of her beloved adopted son.

After Moses secret is revealed and he flees into the wilderness, we meet Zapporah, his nomadic wife. Here the story takes on new depth as we learn more about the character and life of this remarkable woman.

Finally, we are reintroduced to Miryam, Moses headstrong sister. We see her in a totally new light as the author puts flesh to the bare bones of information we are given in scripture.

Even though the author takes great literary liberty in fleshing out the character and lives of these three women, there is nothing anti-scriptural in her exciting embellishments and therefore, I found them to be most enjoyable and their stories very plausible. I highly recommend you add this to your reading list!

P.S. Be sure to read the quotation before the title page to understand where the author got the title THE SHADOW WOMEN from...very cool!