Don’t worry, we’re just as surprised as you are. (Well, mostly… people like all sorts of weird stuff.) “For Such a Time,” a romance “inspiration” novel written by Kate Breslin, is a retelling of the Book of Esther, centering around a blonde and blue-eyed Jewish girl who is saved by her Nazi “hero” from execution. The rest is history, as they say.
Perhaps even more surprisingly (or not), the book, which was published by the Christian imprint Bethany House Publishers, recently received two RITA nominations, the equivalence to an Emmy for actors, for “excellence in romance fiction” in the inspirational and first book categories.
A guest reviewer at Smart Bitches Trashy Books actually wrote a fairly comprehensive outline and critique of the book, where the writer says she became “extremely uncomfortable,” particularly citing the Holocaust survivor’s conversion to Christianity, which was central to her “saving.” I guess there truly is a market for everything.
Of course, this is really just rewriting “Wuthering Heights,” but not nearly as well (and without the cool Kate Bush song to boot). With its Christian twist, it perverts this already subversive trope with the idea that anyone can be saved as long as you become a Christian. Yup, she really did go there.
This is when we say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
