Review of The Messenger by Siri Mitchell

Hannah Sutherland is a Quaker, loyal to her faith and family. When Hannah’s twin brother joins the Colonial army and is captured and imprisoned, she’ll have to make a choice between these two loyalties since the Quakers oppose war and have decided to not help the rebels. Jeremiah Jones is a Colonial spy, and is loyal to struggling, war-torn America. When he is asked to do the impossible, he’ll have to decide just how far that loyalty will go and how much more he’s willing to sacrifice. And he’ll need Hannah’s help. Hannah and Jeremiah have too many differences, but they’ll need each other in order for a daring escape plan to succeed. In the process they’ll discover they need each other for a lot more too.

I’ll be honest, I had a hard time getting into this book. It had a bit of a slow start and I didn’t particularly care much for Hannah or her family. Their religious legalism didn’t cause me to have much sympathy for them and they seemed very hypocritical. Jeremiah is very brooding, but even in that he was more likable than Hannah. About halfway through, though, Hannah began to redeem herself, mainly because of Jeremiah.  The last half of the book was more action-packed and suspenseful, although the ending seemed a bit abrupt.

I didn’t know much about Quakers before this book, and I’m sure I still don’t know all that much. I agree with many things they believed, but completely disagree with a lot as well. We can draw many parallels to Christianity today though. It’s all about activism and taking a stand politically and Jesus is lost completely. Social issues are important, but they’re not what Christianity is about. Yes, it’s important to help orphans, to stop human trafficking, and to give equality to women, but if you lose sight of Christ what’s the point. I think that’s what Hannah figured out at the end, and that’s why she became a better character. It’s a good reminder to us all really.

I thought this book was okay, but it wasn’t one of my favorites. I’ll give Siri Mitchell another shot though if anyone has any suggestions.

Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book to review. All opinions, however, are my own. If you'd like to receive books from Bethany House Publishers to review please go here.