Sunday, April 10, 2016

Counted With the Stars by Connilyn Cossette

Counted With the Stars by Connilyn Cossette is this authors first novel and also the first of the Out of Egypt series.  This novel tells the fictional story of how Kiya who was an Egyptian born of privilege who had always had a slave dress her and do all of her bidding from birth became sold by her father into slavery to a woman who hated her.  Her family had always lived beyond their means but in order to get out of debt her father sold her to his friend.  How could this father who had always treated her like a prize jewel just sell her to avoid shame?  Her mother now sold items in the market to pay the bills.  Kiya was screamed at daily by her mistress for her numerous mistakes.  In the year she had been enslaved she still made many mistakes.  Then strange things started happening in Egypt.  The River Nile had started to bleed and stunk with the many dead fish and other water life.  Kiya heard from her Hebrew slave friend, Shira, that a prophet Moses had returned and because of him that this was only the first of many signs that the Hebrews would be set free.  Sure enough soon after the Nile started to run clear again there was the many frogs. Frogs everywhere.  You couldn't sweep fast enough to even clear a path for the mistress to walk without a frogs slipping underfoot.  The frog plague had just barely ended when the biting insects came--oddly enough to only bite the Egyptians.  When the darkness plague came it nearly scared the wits out of Kiya.  Kiya had always been terrified of darkness and now 3 days and nights of darkness.  Shira said that the Hebrews would be set free and she would not be enslaved anymore.  Shira told wonderful stories of her Jewish culture.  How could Kiya believe these stories that Shira swore were true?  Can Kiya renounce her culture and believe this slave girl and her prophet Moses?

I liked this story of the escape from Egypt and can hardly wait until the next story of Shira comes out.  This fictional account of how the average slave made the trip into the Promised Land is an interesting accounting of how it may have been for average slave.  The Bible only tells of how it was for Moses and his family but how was it for the rest of the slaves?  How did they find out what was coming next?  Did it just sneak up on them like the rest of Egypt?  How did the water stand up to let the people walk through on the dry land?  Read this book to find answers and then decide for yourself.
I received this book from BethanyHouse for this review.

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