Book Review: The Cry of Her Heart

Title: The Cry of Her Heart

Author: Ora Smith

Publisher: Lighten

Date: 2020

Quote: "But your protector pays for your chastity."

In 1632, being the wrong kind of Protestant was a crime in England. Peninnah is in the Clink Prison, a real place, where prisoners were charged high prices for everything--including freedom from sexual abuse, not to mention time at a window facing the street where prisoners are allowed to beg for money to pay the high cost of being locked up. She can't afford to pay not to be raped. Somebody, she learns, is paying at least that price for her. 

Over the months in prison, during which she holds the baby after another prisoner dies in childbirth and develops some sympathy for the one woman on the women's side of the Clink who seems to belong in prison, Peninnah learns who her "protector" is. She had a crush on Robert Linnell, years ago, but he married another woman, She learns that that woman is dead. Her heart leaps, but she reminds herself that he wasn't interested in her when she was clean and pretty. Now she's dressed in rags and, unavoidably, infested with lice, and on page one she let her long red hair be chopped off as close to the scalp as possible to pay for a chance to beg.

All she can do is pray. When she finds Robert on the men's side of the Clink, she realizes that he can do nothing more than pray, too. This is the historical record, not a novel written to please modern readers; the main characters don't control their destiny in the way we might want them to do. It's up to God to hear the cry of Peninnah's heart. 

In historical fact, she thought God did. 

This is one of a series in which Ora Smith fleshes out what's known about Christian women of the past, including Pocahontas Rebecca Rolfe. The reality of their lives isn't always nice or politically correct. This book contains synopses of the books that came before it, so readers can decide which stories they want to read. 

Recommended to readers who are ready for historical novels that are more fact-based than the usual romantic stories.