Claiming Canaan picks up the story of Zelophehad’s daughters a few years after we left them at the end of Heavenly Lights, as they’re about to claim their promised inheritance. Mahlah and Noah have young families, Hoglah is married, and Tirzah is betrothed, but Milcah has been rather unlucky in her suitors to date. And to be honest, she doesn’t feel much luckier when she finds herself betrothed to Eli. If you’ve read the previous books in this series, you’ll know that there is a bit of history there, and it hasn’t always shown Eli in the best light.

This book changes that, although we don’t necessarily come to an understanding of how or why Eli has changed. We simply become assured he has changed when we see the way he handles the challenges that face them as they set about building a life with their inheritance. And there are many challenges, not least of which is learning how to work the land they’ve been blessed with. Along the way they need to defend what is theirs and navigate interactions with Canaanites who remain in the land, not to mention avoid a few natural hazards.

While each of these things brought interest to the story, they felt like a series of speed bumps for the characters to get over rather than sources of genuine tension that left me wondering where the characters would end up. And I would have loved to have seen the daughters of Zelophehad grow as they faced their various challenges across the series, but these stories focused on circumstantial challenges rather than inner growth. We saw their strengths, but not those aspects of their own characters that they needed to overcome.

Nevertheless, I have enjoyed getting to know Zelophehad’s daughters through this series. If you enjoy biblical fiction or historical romance set in ancient cultures, I encourage you to check these books out.