The Centurion’s Wife

Title: The Centurion’s Wife
Authors: Davis Bunn and Janette Oke
Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian Fiction
Pages: 378
Rating: 2/5

When her family’s wealth and power are lost forever, Leah is sent to Pontius Pilate in hopes that he might arrange a strategic marriage. But despite her betrothed’s striking countenance and position, Leah deems life as a centurion’s wife a fate worse than death.

Head of the garrison near Galilee, Alban has ambitions that could one day see him at the seat of power – in Rome itself. Eager to prove himself, he takes on the assignment of a lifetime, one that will put his carer, his beliefs, and his very life at risk.

But when the death – and missing body – of an obscure rabbi compel Leah and Alban to search for answers, what they discover changes everything.

I got this book last Christmas from my parents. I’m a fan of historical fiction, but I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up on my own. I have read some Christian fiction so I’m not completely opposed to the genre.

The book was alright. It wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t good either. I thought it was pretty interesting in the beginning, but as I got farther into the story, it began to drag along. It’s told from the perspective of the niece of Pilate, and the servant of his wife, Leah, and her betrothed – a Gaul/Roman soldier, Alban. I liked Alban well enough, but Leah was a little irritating. In general, the characters were kind of lifeless and any attempt at creating emotion or a believable character fell flat.

The plot is obviously very predictable since there’s not much you can do with a book based on a Biblical story. It’s not too difficult to get through, but it’s not really a page turner either. The authors tried to create a secondary story-line so they could use a little creativity but it just wasn’t very intriguing: Leah is worried that Alban will hurt her because she’s had such a miserable past and he wins her over with his kindness. It’s been done before and there wasn’t any depth to it.

I also felt that the authors didn’t do too much research. The authors didn’t make any big mistakes in the cultural or historical details, but they didn’t really put much in there to begin with. When I read a historical fiction book, I like to learn things about that time period or event and this wasn’t the case with The Centurion’s Wife.

As for the style of writing, I felt like it was very choppy in some place and didn’t flow very well. It was nothing special. But on the plus side, I couldn’t tell where Bunn left off and Oke took up the story – it all sounded like the same author, for the most part, which is pretty difficult to do.

Perhaps if I was a Christian, I might find more meaning the story and would be able to overlook the rather bland plot and characterization and enjoy it. If you’re a religious Christian, you might want to give it a try. If you’re not, you’ll probably want to skip this one.