Bread of Angels

Lydia knows all of her father's secret recipes for making dyes, especially purple dyes.  People want her recipes and make her life a misery in order to get them.  When she has to leave Thyatira because of accusations against her father, she meets a young lady named Rebekah, a Jewess, who teaches her about God while Lydia teaches Rebekah about dying and weaving fabric.

When Lydia gets to Philippi, she seems to have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. There is someone who wants her formulas and is willing to spare no expense, and no length is too far to go for him.  But while in Philippi, Lydia finds a patroness who champions her cause.

Tessa Afshar has raised the art of writing biblical fiction to new heights.  She has taken people from the Bible who have only been given a few lines of text, and added color, dimension, and texture to their stories.  She researches the culture of the era to give even more believability to her novels.  Bread of Angels relates the story of Lydia, mentioned in the Bible only as a seller of purple and as a woman who prayed.  Tessa takes these few lines and fleshes them out into a novel that is hard to put down (My kindle reader's battery died while I was reading it).

Five stars, two thumbs up, and some manna for a reading snack.

My thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for allowing me to read and review this book.