The Sisters of Corinth (The Emissaries)
60 CE. Mariana’s and Prima’s house is divided. Mariana is a follower of Yeshua and her stepsister, Prima, follows the Roman gods. When Mariana is arranged in marriage with the new governor’s son, she worries about marrying someone who worships idols. Prima, however, believed she was the one the governor would choose to marry his son and plots ways to take her sister’s place. Surely, Mariana’s singular God can’t be more powerful than all of hers? But when her prayers to Aphrodite are unanswered, Prima decides to explore the seedier areas of Corinth to find a more permanent solution.
There are many details about the lives of women, including clothing styles, hairstyles for married women or women in mourning, etc., that bring fascinating depth to the story. Both sisters struggle to find a place in the world. When Prima’s expectations are upended, she seeks curses and simmers with anger. Conversely, Mariana reads copies of Paulos’s letters to the early Corinthian church to find answers, even though some passages confuse her as a gentile. Besides her mother, there are few she can turn to. As Mariana tries to explain her faith to others, she wrestles with questions about forgiveness, particularly towards a sister who continually tries sabotaging her life.
This is an engrossing story of faith and women at the beginning of Emperor Nero’s reign. Hunt isn’t afraid to bring her characters to dark places, which at times gets hard to read when so much bad keeps happening to your favorite characters. When tragedy strikes her family, Mariana struggles to understand how Yeshua could know of a woman’s pains and questions if God has abandoned her, but these trials of faith provide readers with beautiful payoffs. Plus, there’s more to come for these characters in book 3.
