As Sure as the Sea by Jamie Ogle

As Sure as the Sea by Jamie Ogle
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Tyndale Fiction 

REVIEW BY PRISCILLA BETTIS

It’s 310 AD, and Nikolas becomes the pastor of the church in Myra (a port city in what is now present-day Turkey). One of the church members is a young woman named Demi. She’s lost almost all of her family to Roman persecution of Christians. Nikolas and Demi are the point-of-view characters in this historical Christian fiction story.

Hmm, Turkey, a pastor named Nikolas … could this be the future St. Nicholas (Santa Claus)? I don’t know because the book’s timeline doesn’t go that far. But at one point, Demi stares at Nikolas’ face and says, “You’d look really good with a white beard.”🙂

Demi makes her living by diving for coral and oysters. This is before the days of scuba gear, so Demi must free-dive for minutes at a time and to a depth that she would experience the bends if she surfaces too quickly. She loves the ocean, and it sounds like Ogle does, too, as evidenced from her underwater descriptions. Here’s a passage from when Demi jumps from her boat and descends to the ocean floor:

The roar of the bubbles in her ears … She relaxed into the familiar rhythms and opened her eyes, the cloudy turquoise blue of the water shot through with shafts of white light. Water raked her hair from her face as the bottom came into view, pale sand broken by dark rocks and clumps of swaying seaweed. Fish scattered in sparkling shards.

-Jamie Ogle, As Sure as the Sea

Beyond beautiful descriptions, there are frightening fight scenes (with robbers, mobs, and even a moray eel!) and romantic midnight escapades.

There are lots of scenes that address theological issues we still deal with today such as whether to marry and start a family in a difficult and angry world, whether or not to encourage people be their “authentic selves” even if “authentic” behaviors are destructive, and picking only those parts of Scripture that suit us while disregarding parts that don’t suit us. (For real, someone could write a whole devotional based on Ogle’s book!)

The descriptions, fight scenes, romance, and theological issues all come together to make for an entertaining read, but you’ll see I took off half a fish. I thought a few scenes in the middle were a TAD slow.

As Sure as the Sea was gut-wrenching to read. Christian persecution is always lurking in the story, and one very claustrophobic scene actually made my stomach hurt (so well written!). The story made me grateful to live in this time and place. It also prompted me to pray for Christians in areas around the world where persecution is a life-threatening issue. I am so glad I read As Sure as the Sea.

I read As Sure as the Sea through NetGalley.