Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book

Hot Search

Women of Genesis #1

Sarah

orson scott card

... Show More
Sarai was a child of ten years, wise for her age but not yet a woman, when she first met Abram. He appeared before her in her father's house, filthy from the desert, tired and thirsty. But as the dirt of travel was washed from his body, the sight of him filled her heart. And when Abram promises Sarai to return in ten years to take her for his wife, her fate was sealed.

Abram kept his promise, and Sarai kept hers they were wed, and so joined the royal house of Ur with the high priesthood of the Hebrews. So began a lifetime of great joy together, and greater peril: and with the blessing of their God, a great nation would be built around the core of their love.

Bestselling author Orson Scott Card uses his fertile imagination, and uncanny insight into human nature, to tell the story of a unique woman--one who is beautiful, tough, smart, and resourceful in an era when women had little power, and are scarce in the historical record. Sarah, child of the desert, wife of Abraham, takes on vivid reality as a woman desirable to kings, a devoted wife, and a faithful follower of the God of Abraham, chosen to experience an incomparable miracle.

341 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1,1983
Series
Women of Genesis

This edition

Format
341 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
September 17, 2001 by Forge Books
ISBN
9780765341174
ASIN
0765341174
Language
English
Characters More characters
  • Sarah (Bible)

    Sarah (bible)

    ...

  • Lot (Bible)

    Lot (bible)

    A patriarch in the biblical Book of Genesis chapters 11–14 and 19. Notable events in his life include his journey with his uncle Abram (Abraham) and his flight from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, during which Lots wife became a pillar of sal...

  • Hagar

    Hagar

    Hagar is a biblical person in the Book of Genesis. She was an Egyptian slave/handmaid of Sarai (Sarah), who gave her to Abraham to bear a child. The product of the union was Abrahams firstborn, Ishmael, the progenitor of the Ishmaelites. Various com...

  • Abraham (Bible)

    Abraham (bible)

    Abraham[a] (originally Abram)[b] is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.[5] In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews and God; in Christianity, he is t...

More editions

About the author

Profile Image for orson scott card

orson scott card

... Show More
Orson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is (as of 2023) the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.

Readers also enjoyed

Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
36(36%)
4 stars
33(33%)
3 stars
31(31%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
nirasha
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I have read the author's science fiction books, and did not really like them. Granted, science fiction is not my favorite genre.
I have often felt that the Bible (strictly speaking about it as a historical work, not denying the spiritual value) was fairly male-centric. There are some great women in the Bible and I would like to know them better. Even as a fictional account (and we must never confuse fiction with reality) this story was well researched and very interesting.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
MaudoBomba
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
After a little bit of a slow start for me, I really enjoyed this book. It's based loosely on Sarah and Abraham from the Bible. I really liked how this book made Sarah and Abraham "real" to me... sometimes I have a hard time doing that when I'm reading the Bible. I really felt for them, not being able to have a child for so long. Also, the struggles and trials that they went through- WOW!
This book also went into Lot and his wife. Part of this was rather humerous to me (how Lot's wife was portrayed in the book) and I got a glimpse of how evil Soddom really must have been.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be reading the next book about Rebekah.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
OfficialRage
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I enjoyed reading this depiction of Abraham and Sarah. It is fun to get some perspective on what life might have been like for them. I was surprised at the sensitivity shown for Sarah in this fictional account and the understanding the author had of what she must have felt when she was unable to conceive. Not to sound sexist, but most men don't understand the many different emotions and feelings that this trial causes in women and how utterly broken they often feel. I also loved how Sarah had great faith and strength, but still had doubts and fears. So easy to relate to her in this story.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
nikiyasha
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Prolific Science Fiction/Fantasy author puts his pen to the service of narratin the lives of the Hebrew Matriarchs in The Women of Genesis series. Here Card beautifully and sensitively narrates the story Sarah, filling in the gaps with consumate and imaginative skill.

Unlike some novels, such as Sarah by Marek Halter and The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, where the women are portayed as worshiping idols and other gods, Sarah is shown as a strong women, devoted to the service of Yahweh since she was little, as are the other matriarchs in the Women of Genesis series.

In this account, Sarai was ten years old, a bright and inquisitive child, when she first met the desert nomad and priest of Yaweh, Abram, who had come to her house to negotiate the marriage of his cousin Lot to the to Sarai's wilful and selfish sister, Qira. Abram captures little Sarai's heart, and and seals her destiny by promising that he will come back and marry her, within ten years.

Sarai, a princes of the Royal House of Ur, is promised by her father as a priestes to Asherah, but renounces this future, and instead devotes her herself to the worship of the one living G-D Yahweh.

Her prayers are answered soon after she prays for Abram to be spared by the vengeance of an Egyptian official, Suwertu-an earthquake shakes Ur and Suwertu is killed.

Abram and Sarai are married in a union of love and faith, joining the Royal House of Ur to the high priesthood of the Hebrew Nation. The epic of love, faith and peril follows from Haran to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan, where Abram and his tribe settle in Hebron.
Card gives us an interesting perspective on Sarai and Abram's experiences in Egypt where she is passed off as Abram's sister, rather than his wife.
Sarai's great kindnes to her handmaiden who she is given in Egypt, the Arab slave-girl Hagar.
The wickedness of Sarai's sister and Lot's wife Qira and the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, and Qira's death there- only Lot and two of his daughters survive.

Finally Hagar's birth of Ishmail and Hagar's newfound spite against Sarah. The miraculous birth in Sarah's old age of Isaac (after G-D's promise), and the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmail from Abraham's household after Ishmail's brutality to the little Isaac.

The narrative is told with sensitivity and prose. The slight deviations from the Biblical account do not in any way take away from the spirit of the Biblical narrative. I actually preferred the idea of Qira being killed by the flames and lava, rather than being literally turned into a pillar of salt.
The author's Biblical understanding is supplemented by his comprehensive study of Canaan, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East. What results is a living saga of love, courage and everlasting faith.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
AiyaChan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Where do I start with all the things I did NOT like about this book? First off - I don't care what people say, Orson Scott Card writes like a "Junior High" novelist. You know, all the books you had to read in jr. high? That's about the caliber of his writing. I'm sure his science fiction stuff is better, and he can weave an interesting plot, but his actual writing skills are pretty amateur. He uses the same descriptive words over and over, and tries so hard to describe whatever it is, that it comes across as weak. The plot of this book was somewhat interesting, but he took so many literary liberties that it was beneficial to fallow along in Genesis so you actually knew what he was talking about. He introduced main characters that hugely influenced the plot, but are not in the scriptures. Don't tell me this is a historical fiction when it is SO far off base, its astounding. Also, even though this book is about "Sarah"...I found her to be the most uninteresting, predictable character in the whole book! He should have called the book "Hagar" for she was much more interesting and well developed.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
JOKERbrokenHERO
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
It took me a while to get into this but I finally picked it up again and finished it. It was ok but not great. I kept comparing to 'Sarah and After' by Lynne Reid Banks, another fictionalised account of the same story by a different author, and to my mind this fell far short. Something about the way it was written aggravated me. There were too many long, complicated, politically-charged conversations, where Person A would say something terribly careful and calculated, and Person B would think about how clever Person A was being and exactly what they were implying, but how they could see through their facade, then come up with an equally diplomatic reply that made Person A reflect the exact same things about what a clever answer it was and how it might be implying this or maybe THAT?? Meanwhile a total of about ten words have been exchanged and nothing has actually happened.

I thought the characters were a bit flat. Sarah was a boring Mary Sue type, perfect at everything, amazingly clever, soooo kind and patient, gorgeous, unselfish, blah blah. Abram the same. Hagar and Quira (Lot's wife) relentlessly awful manipulative shrews with no redeeming features.

The author's note at the end irritated me deeply. He kept saying it was just a fictionalised account and it didn't MATTER whether X or Y events actually happened as described in the Bible or as he described them in the book. But then he'd spend paragraphs trying to justify his interpretation, apparently convinced he's gotten it right where everyone else has gotten it wrong. Something about his whole tone just got on my nerves, it reminded me of one of those anti vaxxers who read a few spurious web pages and decide they're actually an expert because they've 'researched' it, so their opinion should be taken seriously.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Krauser1999
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
I took a women in religion class in college where we were required to write our own account of a Biblical story, so of course I was interested in Orson Scott Card’s account. And it’s well written, it really is. It’s just so… Mormon. I don’t know how else to describe it. Card somehow canonizes the book of Abraham, the book of Enoch, the temple ceremony, and so much more that is so specific to the LDS faith. It’d actually be really interesting if I didn’t have any of my own personal feelings mixed in with it. An account of how an LDS man views the Bible (bc that’s what it is, really).

All that aside, the only thing that absolutely pushed my buttons was the villainization of Hagar and Lot’s wife (who in this account is Sarai’s sister?) & saintness of Sarah and Abraham. It just seemed so one-dimensional in comparison to the amazing accounts I have read contemplating how everyone is human, even “God’s chosen”. Hence the 2.5 stars.

I’ll read the other two books at some point, but I don’t know how I’ll feel about them.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Befu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Mixed feelings. It was good enough I will probably read the rest of the Women of Genesis series. I loved how strong Sarah was and how she was portrayed in a multi-faceted way. Strong, but still always doubting herself, her own faith, God. She didn't just stay one way and always stay strong. She had her strong days and her doubting days, like so many of us humans.

I also loved that Abraham also struggled and had conflicting feelings and was sometimes humbled. He was a good man and a great prophet and I think it helps me to know that even prophets are human.

However, I also felt that the characters, Sarah especially, acted and spoke in too modern a frame of mind. Too liberated. Honestly, though, who am I to know how women thought and acted then - it's just my own prejudices and assumptions. I could be wrong.

Thus, the mixed feelings.
0 0 Reply
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.