Brief Summary: A Reluctant Queen: The Love Story of Esther by Joan Wolf is a fictional love story based on the biblical story of Esther. The story is riveting and presents the plight of women and Jews in the Persian empire. 

Long Review: The story takes place in Susa among the Jew Mordecai and his niece Esther. Mordecai receives a dream he believes is from God and fearing what may happen to the Jews decides to take action. The only action that can be taken is for Esther to apply to become the Queen to the Persian king Ahasuerus as she is half-Persian by birth. Esther does not believe she will be chosen so goes along with the plan and join the herem. Esther does indeed get chosen by Ahasuerus to be her Queen much to her dismay. Esther must then navigate her new life as the Queen while hiding her true identity from her new husband the king. Over the course of the book Ahasuerus comes to trust Esther and begins to insight the jealousy of the King's best friend Hammond. The book concludes with the Jews indeed being threatened and Esther must reveal her true identity to save her people.

I am reading this book on the recommendation of a nursing technician and am glad I looked the book up. I listened to the audio book and the narrator's voice used was adequate. The woman didn't have much range and I thought the men's parts could have been a bit more gruff/low. The fact this story was based on a biblical story has made me look into a new genre of book for my reading pleasure. I will be looking more at historical fiction in the future and reading more from Joan Wolf.

Rating: 4/5

Other works by the author: Someday Soon, Someone named Eva