The Wanderer’s Legacy. Book 3 in ‘The Wanderer Series’
Author: Natasha Woodcraft
ISBN: 978-1915034953 RRP £16.99 (Paperback pp533)
THE BLURB
Adah lives trapped between the life she longed for and the life she chose. She’s failed to produce an heir for her once devoted husband. As Lamech becomes increasingly unpredictable and domineering, Adah seeks refuge in legends about the mysterious Wanderer.
Then Lamech takes another wife. Adah flees to her family home, where freedom causes hope to rise once more. But her body hides a secret that will propel her back into danger. Can a legend come to her rescue? Or does someone else hold the power to help her dwell in safety?
The Wanderer’s Legacy is a standalone story in The Wanderer Series, exploring the tale of Lamech and his two wives from Genesis 4 in Biblical Historical Fiction. If you love fresh spins on ancient Bible stories and diving deep into the human condition, then you’ll love The Wanderer’s Legacy.
MY REVIEW
How do you live a good life in a world that is becoming increasingly godless? How do you see hope for anything better, when culture is full of corruption and people all around you are being pulled into a way of life that is increasingly cruel and depraved? What if that advancing evil threatens to pull you in and overtake you, if the only way to make a stand for what is good, true and life-giving, is to risk abuse and personal persecution?
The Wanderer’s Legacy, the third and latest book in Natasha Woodcraft’s Wanderer Series, explores all these themes. Although set in ancient times and based on the lives of some of the earliest inhabitants of earth, it explores issues that are surprisingly relevant to us today. We meet Adah, one of the wives of Lamech (mentioned only once in scripture) and through Natasha’s imagination we are taken on a journey with her as she lives her life through increasingly dark and dangerous times.
The characterisation is so good that we are drawn into Adah’s world, we grieve with her, we flinch at every blow she suffers. We wonder, with her, if the heroic stranger, her ancestor Kayin (Cain), or ‘The Wanderer’, still follows after Yahweh, Elohim, the creator God. If he, and those struggling to hold onto the faith of their ancestors, carry the only hope that she has of escaping the life that has imprisoned her.
The author has proved in this series that she can take a small and obscure bible reference and with her God-given imagination create a story around it that loses none of the intent, or the truth, of the Word of God. It is biblical fiction at its best. The Wanderer’s Legacy paints a vivid and realistic picture of a pre-flood world, where the worship of gods other than Yahweh is already taking hold. Where His standards for living are already being chipped away at. Where men are choosing to break the covenant bond of marriage to take second wives… I found Natasha’s descriptions compelling and believable. Her handling of what life in that time might have looked like well imagined.
The other characters are also well drawn. Lamech especially, as we see an ordinary man enticed by the lure of power and influence, into a life of godlessness and idolatry. We meet his second wife Tzillah, his henchman Azurak, and evil brother-in-law Barsabas. We also meet Adah’s faithful, and faith- filled friends, the kind elder statesman Chanoch (Kayin’s son), and Eliana and Ruhamah.
But it is Adah’s personal story that keeps you reading, and it isn’t a short book! It should be a dark and depressing read, but it isn’t. All through the book there are glimmers of light in the darkness – laughter, kindness, the joy of children, finding friends in unexpected places, love even. And the redemptive arc plays out beautifully with a well written and deeply satisfying end (no spoilers!).
The Wanderer’s legacy is a beautiful piece of writing, and probably my favourite of all of Natasha’s books. I struggled to put it down, wanting so much for Adah to meet the Wanderer, to have her questions answered, and ultimately to meet Yahweh for herself. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that she gets all that she has hoped for, and in God’s great mercy, much more besides. A highly recommended read!
The Wanderer’s Legacy is available direct from the author at natashawoodcraft.com, via the publisher at broadplacepublishing.co.uk or from Amazon in paperback and kindle versions.
Joy Margetts is a published author and blogger. Her books are works of Christian Historical fiction. Set in medieval Wales against the backdrop of Cistercian abbey life, they tell stories of faith, hope and God’s redemptive power. Her debut novel ‘The Healing‘ was published by Instant Apostle on 19 March 2021.
‘The Pilgrim‘, her second full length novel, was published by Instant Apostle on 22 July 2022, and her third novel, ‘The Bride‘, published on 20th October 2023. Her first non-fiction book, an Advent Devotional, ‘Christ Illuminated‘ was published in September 2023.
‘The Stranger‘, her fourth full length novel was published 22 November 2024 by Broad Place Publishing.
More information on Joy, and her books can be found here