Counted With The Stars - Connilyn Cossette

Well it has certainly been a minute since I posted on here! Sorry for the delay guys. 8000 words into my 10k word dissertation and I'm nearing the end of my Honours year so I will be stepping back a bit just to get my head around all of these final essays.

But to give myself a break after 3 days straight of writing, I decided to FINALLY review one of my favourite books.

At the end of last year I discovered Biblical Fiction. I put it out to my friends that for Christmas, all I wanted was Biblical Fiction. This here was the first book I was given. My friend said he had never heard of it, saw it on the shelf and thought "this is something Michaela will like". And oh, how he was right.

I couldn't wait to start it, in fact, I saw him New Years Eve and I started it right then and there (a bit rude - some would say), but from the first chapter I was hooked.

I had grown up with the story of the Exodus, you hear the great conquest of the Jews and God speaking through Aaron and Moses, but I had never imagined what it would have looked like from the other perspective.

The plot line of Counted With The Stars follows the story of Kiya, an Egyptian girl who is sold into slavery when her father's business goes bankrupt. Thankfully she manages to go into the home of her father's friend, however this does not mean that her life is any easier. She is tormented by her master's wife as she was clumsy and did not really have any idea what she was doing. To top it off, her fiance rejects her, promptly finding a new wife of equal status. It is here that Kiya befriends Shira, a Jew in the same position as her who helps her along in her tasks. As the story develops, Shira starts to tell Kiya of the unknown God who will one day save them. Little did they know that it wouldn't be too much longer when the plagues hit Egypt. Unlike all other accounts of this story I had heard, the plagues were told from an Egyptian perspective. Whilst some of the plagues hit both the Jews and the Egyptians, some only effected the Egyptians. Kiya struggles with trying to understand what is happening to the country she thought was undefeatable. Her homeland was being destroyed, her gods vanquished and the only alternative she had was a God who had the power to kill her. Why would he accept one who was born to the country He had just destryed? One night her master comes to her, explaining that that night they must go and hide in a Jewish home otherwise Kiya's older brother was going to die. It was the night of the final plague...

For Kiya, the events turned her heart away from Yahweh more then they turned them to Him. As her family escapes Egypt with the Jews, she wrestles with understanding who this destructive God was and is torn between saving her family and staying with the Jews, or returning to her mother land - Egypt. This part in Kiya's story was so relatable. It is in hard moments where he turn away from God, and that is coming from someone who believes in Him. To not believe and be in Kiya's position would be so difficult.

But the plot line isn't as simple as that. We hear from Kiya's mum, her brother, Shira, and Eben. The story of these 5 people weave together to create a mess of life, but a storyline of redemption and God's grace in moments of hardship and doubt.

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This story was beautiful. Often as someone who grew up a Christian, it is hard to relate to one who didn't. Not only did this show me the struggles others who learn to believe in God go through, but it highlighted the areas of doubt in my own life. If God asked me to leave my homeland and travel into the unknown, would I go? Why do I not lay my life before God and wait to hear His voice, trusting that His way is good and true even when I don't understand? Why do I doubt when I know his plans are for me?

Though there is a present love story in this book, I found myself (for the first time EVER) more drawn to the growing relationship between Kiya and God than I did between Kiya and Eben. I must say, I have always struggled with laying my life down before God, humbling myself and being vulnerable. It was through Kiya's journey to God that I found myself craving what she was experiencing.

If anyone wants to start with Biblical Fiction, I would say to start here. This beautifully woven, intricate story will captivate you from the first page, leaving you breathless and struggling to put it down.

Stay tuned because the next 3 books are in the pipeline for a review and I am pumped. In all honesty, while this book got me hooked on the series, it really was book two where I fell in love with it. Shira's story is heartbreaking but beautiful. Where Kiya taught me about grace, Shira taught me about forgiveness and that no matter what your past is, God loves you and wants to have an intimate and beautiful relationship with each and every one of us.

Stay tuned!!!!

Michaela.