Preacher on the Run

Title: Preacher on the Run: A Novel of the Regulator Uprising (For Liberty and Conscience #1)

Author: Jayna Baas

Genre: Christian Historical Fiction (not Romance)

Length: 326

Age Range: 13+ or parental guidance (violence)

Paperback (direct from author): https://www.booksbyjayna.com/bookstore

eBook (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0872FQL8G or search “Jayna Baas” on Amazon

Trailer:

About:

North Carolina, 1771

Robert Boothe has spent the last four years leading the tyrant-hating Regulators in standing against North Carolina’s corrupt British government. Just being an unlicensed dissenter preacher is enough to make Robert a target, but he refuses to back down from his conscience. Aside from a sympathetic court justice, the village of Ayen Ford has no other champion for its poor and defenseless.

Then Charles Drake, emissary of His Excellence William Tryon, comes to town with one ambition: winning the governor’s favor, no matter what it takes. And Robert Boothe just might be his last chance.

All Robert wants is a safe place for his little Baptist church to live and worship God. But the established church wants him to shut up. The governor’s men want him dead. And that safe place is farther and farther away.

You can run, but you can’t hide…

Positive Elements:

Characters do everything they can to help and protect others, even at personal risk.

Negative Elements:

None.

Spiritual Elements:

Characters are pastors; a character wants to live his life for the Lord; characters pray; there are multiple discussions about the Bible and God; the Bible is quoted; there is a strong salvation message; Baptism is explained; trusting God is discussed.

Violence:

Characters are arrested on false charges; characters are hunted; homes are ransacked; villages are destroyed; characters are physically harmed and ambushed; characters get in fights; it is insinuated someone is shot with an arrow; possessions are stolen; battles are waged; characters discuss their pasts; gunfire is exchanged; characters are shot; it is mentioned rebel leaders are hanged; a character kills another in self-defense.

Other:

Characters kiss.

Rating:

5 Stars.

Conclusion:

This is a powerful book, and especially hits hard with all the turmoil and fraud going on right now. Preacher on the Run can be intense at times as characters flee for their lives, fight injustices, and struggle to reconcile their desire for freedom from tyrannical leadership with their faith. Faith plays a colossal role, and gives Preacher on the Run a raw edge as characters are faced with the head knowledge that they’re supposed to trust God and the heart knowledge that it is not as easy as it sounds.

The banter between Robert and Mitchell was endearing, and something I, as the oldest sibling, could well identify with. And the history. Oh, the history. I knew about preachers and pastors who were hunted and punished by the state church for not registering and being beneath the state’s thumb, but I always thought of it happening primarily in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Reading Preacher not only advanced my knowledge of this rich historical period, but it reminded me how valuable our freedoms are, and how easily we can lose them.

Intense, delightful, raw, and emotional, Preacher on the Run is definitely on my TRA (to read again) list.