In Sev­en Days to the Sea, Rebec­ca Kohn brings to life the numer­ous sto­ries of Exo­dus through the eyes of two sig­nif­i­cant female char­ac­ters, Miryam and Tzip­po­rah. The two women find their dif­fer­ing cus­toms a source of con­flict until they are able to unite over the new law and tra­di­tion of the Jew­ish peo­ple. 

The author clear­ly did much research in writ­ing this nov­el; the sto­ry fol­lows the text as much as pos­si­ble and uses many well­known midrashim. When details are miss­ing from the sources, Kohn uses her imag­i­na­tion to rich­ly devel­op the char­ac­ters and setting. 

For the knowl­edge­able bible read­er, much of the plot is known and pre­dictable, but Kohn’s char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and detailed descrip­tion of the spir­i­tu­al and cul­tur­al prac­tices of the time is enough to hold the reader’s inter­est. Notes, sources.