I consider it a big shame that this book is so poorly known and talked about.
It is one of my most favorite books in Hebrew, and one of my favorite book in general.
A translation of the summary (sorry for the possible mistakes):
"What does a thirteen year old child know of betrayal?
Somewhere in the fog, between the marshes and the sea, lays the city of Migdal Dror. From there, mounted on a donkey, is destined to arrive her promised fiance to take her. Her life is about to change. She will leave her family and all that she knows in the village and arrive at the big city. For the first time in her life she will see the sea and touch him. She will get to know the city's gods and will live with a handsome blacksmith, the son of a mysterious man who saved her life many years ago. And she will never return home.
Puat's belongings are packed. She is prepared and excited for her big adventure. She craves with all her might to begin her life as a man's wife and a mother, and she has no way of knowing that her tragedy is already underway.
Puat is an extraordinary creation that takes place in the land of Israel of more than 3,000 years ago, and in it are tied a story about growing up and the painful change of the land: daring groups of rebels that hide in the mountains are about to conquer the land from the foreign Egyptian reign, and the Canaanite settlers are fated to lose hold of the coastal plain and the valleys.
Inbal Reshef has been delving into Canaanite texts for years before writing her book. In the pages of Puat lays a marvelous depiction of an ancient, mesmerizing and wild world, where nature is a deity: the sea, river and sun hold a will of their own; and mother's love sweeps everything, just like today. It is a brilliant, powerful book that challenges the biblical concept of the early Jewish people and offers instead a connection of the race and culture of the Canaanites and the outlaws in the mountains, for it will lead to the formation of the new people, the Israeli people."
Now that you perhaps have a better idea of what the book is about, let me give my humble opinion:
I love it. I am a native speaker of Hebrew and I have never read or heard Hebrew as beautiful as this. It's the Hebrew of 3,000 years ago, which is why it sounds foreign and captivating to me.
Other than the absolute magical language, the book describes a different world. One may call it primitive, but so will surely our descendants about our time 3,000 years from now. This is all they knew back then, and it's beautiful in its own way. It's a simple life, with simple fears and beliefs.
My heart broke for the heroine a few times during the book. It is amazing all that she goes through.
I recommend this book to everybody who can read Hebrew.