‘Rescued Hearts’ Author Q&A with Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 160 books, with 5.5 million copies sold worldwide. Angela’s novels have won or been nominated for the RWA RITA Award, the Christy Award, the ECPA Christian Book Award, and the HOLT Medallion. Four of her novels have received ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, and Angela is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from both the Romantic Times Book Club and ACFW. Angela holds doctorates in biblical studies and theology. She and her husband make their home in Florida with mastiffs and chickens. Learn more at AngelaHuntBooks.com.

FF: Can you please provide a brief summary of your novel Rescued Heart?
Rescued Heart is the story of Sarah—taken from Scripture and another ancient manuscript, the Book of Jasher. Scripture tells us relatively little about the first matriarch of our family, so this novel explores more of what her life might have been like.

FF: What drew you to write about Sarah as the first subject in your new Matriarchs series?

I have been writing biblical historical fiction for a few years now, and I had yet to go back this far in history. It’s a challenge to find authentic history about the bronze age, but when you can find something, it’s fascinating.

FF: How did you research daily life in ancient Mesopotamia and the nomadic existence Sarah would have experienced?
As I mentioned above, I used the Book of Jasher to fill in many of the details that Scripture does not give us. Jasher does not claim to be inspired Scripture, but it does give us ideas about what daily life in that age could have been like.

FF: Sarah faces many difficult situations in her journey, including barrenness in a culture that deeply valued fertility. How did you approach writing about her emotional struggles?
Writing about infertility was easy for me, as my husband and I personally experienced it—though not nearly as long as Sarah did. I simply took what I knew and multiplied it by decades of years.

FF: The relationship between Sarah and Abraham spans decades. What challenges did you face in portraying their evolving relationship over such a long period?
A marriage, like any relationship, goes through seasons—the honeymoon phase, the getting-to-know you phase (especially in an arranged marriage), as well as various struggles regarding finances and leadership. Sarah put up with a lot—Abraham’s lies about their relationship, for one thing, and Sarah’s twice ending up in harems of foreign kings—yet they remained committed to each other.

FF: How did you balance staying true to the biblical account while creating a full narrative with dialogue and interior thoughts?
Whenever I write in this genre, I aspire to 1) never contradict the biblical record, 2) never contradict the historical record, and 3) fill in the rest with what fits with what we can know about society, environment, governments, and technology at that time. The rest is emotional, because human nature does not change.

FF: Sarah is often remembered for her laughter when told she would bear a son in her old age. How did you interpret this pivotal moment in her story?
Wouldn’t you laugh if someone told you—at ninety—that in a year you’d be nursing your own baby? I would! Sarah was not only old, but she had also been through menopause, so she thought of herself as a dried husk, no longer a woman. No wonder she laughed.

FF: What surprising insights about Sarah did you discover during your research and writing process?
I don’t know if I “discovered” this, but I portrayed her as a woman who trusted in God through her husband. After all, Abraham was the one who talked to God, saw Him, prayed to Him—Sarah simply believed in her husband, who believed in God. But when God told Abraham to sacrifice Sarah’s beloved son, she had a real crisis of faith, and Jewish tradition holds that the shock of that realization was what resulted in her death.

If you examine Scripture, you’ll see that Abraham and Isaac left Beersheba, where the family had been living, and went to Mount Moriah for the sacrifice . . . but Sarah doesn’t die in Beersheba, where she must have been living, but at Mamre, where Abraham had built an altar. And that’s all I can say without spoiling the ending of the book.

FF: What do you hope readers take away from Rescued Heart?
That our relationship with God must be personal, not secondhand.

FF: What are you working on next?
I am currently writing Righteous Heart, the story of Rebekah. Loving the research.