The Bride by Joy Margetts
Joy Margetts is a Christian Historical Fiction author based in North Wales. She says, “The natural beauty and history of my adoptive homeland, and my love of the Word of God combine to inspire my writing. My desire in all my writing is to point to Jesus and His kingdom.“
The Bride is the third instalment in Joy Margett’s Historical Fiction Series set in medieval Wales. Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing The Pilgrim, and you can read my review here.
The Pilgrim was a prequel to Joy’s first book, The Healing, and the timeline of The Bride is chronologically akin to The Healing, discovering what’s been happening behind the scenes.
Still with me? If you’re confused, don’t worry. I don’t think it matters what order you read the books in. They each have something profound to offer and compliment each other wonderfully.
The Bride
So, let’s dive into The Bride. And dive in is something the author does immediately. The opening thrusts us into the distress of Efa, a young girl wrenched from the love of her life and forced to marry a man many years her senior to raise his children, some of whom are older than her. The culprit? Her uncle, a favoured father figure until that point, who laughs off her lover’s attempts at protest and unquestionably, uncharacteristically, unexplainably betrays her.
Without preamble, we jump into Efa’s emotions, feeling everything with her as each carefully crafted word paints the canvas of her situation, from the tearing thin silk of a borrowed gown, to the cruel abrasive laughter that turns her heart to stone, we feel the betrayal, the loss, the sheer devastation of every earthly hope dashed.
With her heart broken, Efa endures a gruelling ride over the harsh Welsh countryside to begin her new life. Our souls sink with hers as the walls of her new home loom before her and it seems all happiness is lost forever. But is it?
The Twist
Within the walls of this home, Efa finds something entirely unexpected – kindness and a spirituality she has never before encountered. From this point on, we see glimmers of God’s grace and purposes for Efa’s life shining through her circumstances.
The title of The Bride hints at the deeper meaning of this story. For this is more than a novel. It is an exploration of The Song of Songs through fiction. Where Efa is denied the love of a man on earth, she’s invited into a deeper communion, a greater love, introduced by the humble young woman, Non, and the gentle abbot, Father Ulrich, who provide Efa with what she truly needs – space to explore what she’s been through and encounter the God who has plans beyond all her expectations. And yes – there is a happy ending – but I’m not giving you any hints!
The Song of Songs
Each chapter is framed by reference to part of the song, as Jesus the bridegroom gently whispers to Efa’s heart and in time she responds, “I’ve made up my mind. Until the darkness disappears and the dawn has fully come, in spite of the shadows and fears, I will go to the mountaintop with you – the mountain of suffering love and the hill of burning incense. Yes, I will be your bride.” Song of Solomon 4:6 (The Passion Translation)
Reading The Bride feels like a spiritual experience. I was deeply moved by Efa’s encounter with Jesus and it left me diving into The Song for myself. I even dug out The Song of Songs: Exploring the Divine Romance by Charlie Cleverley, a non-fiction accompaniment that I would thoroughly recommend. I had read this book some years previously, but it took on a new level of depth after reading Joy’s book. And this is the beauty of exploring faith through fiction, something Joy Margetts and I are both passionate about. Fiction penetrates the deeper places of our hearts, illuminating things we might have read again and again but never opened our soul’s window to.
So if The Song of Songs has sometimes left you a little baffled (and let’s be honest, we’ve all been there…) or if you just want an absolutely cracking story to indulge in this advent, please do pick up a copy of The Bride. And when you’ve read it, let me know what you think!
The Bride is published by Instant Apostle and is available now from all good retailers.
However, you can support the author best by buying directly from her website https://joymargetts.com