Keturah by Lisa Tawn Bergren - fiction review

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Keturah's father has passed away and in order to provide for herself and her sisters they have decided to travel to the island of Nevis to try and save their father's struggling sugar plantation. The man Keturah loved as a child is also going to make his mark as a plantation owner but because of Keturah's previous abusive relationship with her deceased husband she declares she'll never rely on a man again. The sisters experience many trials as female plantation owners, and they have to really find their own strength in order to succeed against all odds.

The good: The description of life at the time seemed pretty accurate and I liked the evolution of the characters from stuck up society people to real-life humans trying to survive and figure out who they are. The writing was well done and I often felt like I was really there at times.

The bad: I felt like I was there at times. While slavery is not something that can be avoided in this story (the author discusses this in the historical notes at the end), I would almost rather not read the story than read about characters that participate in the moral atrocity that is slavery. The Banning sisters were kind to their slaves, but that doesn't detract from the fact that they in fact thought it was okay to own people. Keturah survived a horribly abusive marriage but in the end, her own comfort and the success of her plantation was more important to her than the lives of people she saw as beneath her. I don't need or want my characters to be perfect. And maybe the future books will see the hearts of these characters changed, but I couldn't get past this detail in order to connect with the main characters. The other issue I had was that the representation of Christianity was weak. It was so unimportant and uninspiring that I would have rather it had been left out completely. I don't need preaching in my fiction but I want there to be genuineness to their faith.

All in all I was disappointed with this book. Which makes me sad because I LOVE some of Bergren's other books (like her River of Time Series). I might read the next book just to see what she does with the slavery issue, but we'll see.

I received this book for free from Bethany House for my honest review.

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