What to read next
by Francine Rivers
Redeeming Love retells the story of Hosea and Gomer as a Gold Rush-era romance, following Angel, a woman convinced she is beyond love, and Michael Hosea, the man God calls to pursue her anyway. It is at bottom a book about grace that will not let go, so groups that finish it tend to respond well to other stories, fiction or true, that trace someone's long road from shame or brokenness into a love they did not earn. Some of the books below are novels with the same sweeping, emotional pull; others are true accounts of rescue and transformation told more plainly. Either way, they give a group more ground to talk about what unconditional love actually costs and does.
Our Redeeming Love guide runs 15 sessions with 107 discussion questions.
These are guides from our own catalog, ordered by how much each book shares with Redeeming Love: subject and themes first, then the kind of group it suits, then the same author. It is an editorial comparison of what the books are about — not a ranking of which is better, and not a claim about what other groups chose.
by Francine Rivers
Written by the same author, this novel has the same sweeping historical romance feel and the same interest in faith forged through suffering, this time in first-century Rome instead of the California Gold Rush. It runs a bit shorter, at 13 sessions, but asks a similar question about what it costs to love and believe when everything around you argues against it.
by David Wilkerson
Where Redeeming Love imagines a man pursuing one broken woman, this true story follows a preacher who leaves everything to pursue a whole city's worth of gang members no one else would go near. Both books are built around the idea that love and faith can reach people written off as unreachable, though this one trades fiction for a first-person, reportorial account and runs slightly shorter at 13 sessions.
by Jackie Hill Perry
Like Angel, Jackie Hill Perry writes from the far side of an identity built on shame and self-protection, and like Redeeming Love this book insists that grace can reach a person exactly as they are rather than as they should be. It is a contemporary memoir rather than historical fiction, more direct and reflective in tone, and shorter at 10 sessions.
by Corrie ten Boom
This true story shares Redeeming Love's conviction that no person or situation is too far gone for God to reach, though here the testing ground is a Nazi concentration camp rather than a brothel or a farm. It runs about the same length, 15 sessions, but its tone is more sober and its focus is forgiveness rather than romantic pursuit.
by Elisabeth Elliot
Both books grow out of a costly, deliberate choice to love people who have given the chooser every reason to walk away, here five missionaries reaching an isolated tribe rather than one man reaching one woman. The tone is more restrained and documentary, built from journals and letters, and the study runs 14 sessions.
by Ron Hall & Denver Moore
This true story pairs an unlikely friendship with the same theme of dignity restored to someone the world had given up on, echoing Michael's steady, patient love for Angel. It is shorter, at 12 sessions, and its tone leans more toward warm and conversational than the literary sweep of Rivers's novel.
by Brother Andrew
Brother Andrew's true story shares Redeeming Love's belief that ordinary obedience, followed without reservation, can accomplish what looks impossible. The setting moves from a Gold Rush farm to Cold War Europe, and the tone is more adventurous and matter-of-fact, over 14 sessions.
by William Paul Young
This novel shares Redeeming Love's interest in how a personal encounter with God can undo years of pain, though here the wound is a parent's grief rather than a history of abuse and prostitution. It is the longer study of the two, at 20 sessions, and leans more into theological conversation than historical narrative.
Session and question counts checked .