By Lori Benton
WaterBrook, 2019
400 pages
Publisher’s Description:
When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king’s mercy–exile to the Colony of North Carolina–he’s indentured to Englishman Edmund Carey as a blacksmith. Against his will Alex is drawn into the struggles of Carey’s slaves–and those of his stepdaughter, Joanna Carey. A mistress with a servant’s heart, Joanna is expected to wed her father’s overseer, Phineas Reeves, but finds herself drawn instead to the new blacksmith.
As their unlikely relationship deepens, successive tragedies strike the Careys. When blame falls unfairly upon Alex he flees to the distant mountains where he encounters Reverend Pauling, itinerate preacher and friend of the Careys, now a prisoner of the Cherokees. Haunted by his abandoning of Joanna, Alex tries to settle into life with the Cherokees, until circumstances thwart yet another attempt to forge his freedom and he’s faced with the choice that’s long hounded him: continue down his rebellious path or embrace the faith of a man like Pauling, whose freedom in Christ no man can steal. But the price of such mercy is total surrender, and perhaps Alex’s very life.
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Thanks to WaterBrook & Multnomah for sending me a copy of The King’s Mercy. All thoughts and opinions in this post are my own.
Though I enjoy many different genres, historical fiction has always been my favorite. Within that genre I have a couple of favorite time periods/places as well – early American history and Scottish highland history. The King’s Mercy brings those two together with the story of a Scottish man serving out an indenture in 1747 North Carolina.
The historical detail in this book was amazing. I can only imagine the research it took to craft a story that includes a wee bit of Scottish history and dialect, the culture of plantations and the masters and slaves that resided there, the complexities of the laws surrounding slavery and indenture, and Cherokee language and culture. There is so much packed into this story!
Woven throughout the narrative is a thread of faith that binds all the characters together as they navigate their own parts of the story. The story is very loosely based on a letter Paul wrote to Philemon regarding his slave Onesimus who had run away, and the mercy Paul was requesting be shown to him as a special favor between the two friends. I wish I had known that at the beginning of the book, because I felt like I saw the whole story in a new light once I knew that connection.
The King’s Mercy is an amazing book and I can’t wait to check out Lori Benton’s other books. If you enjoy historical fiction, especially faith based, then you will want to check this book out for sure. I’ve never read the Outlander series but I’ve heard this book compared that and I know it is pretty popular among many readers, so if you like Diana Gabaldon you might also enjoy The King’s Mercy as well.
What is your favorite type of historical fiction?
Similar historical fiction you might enjoy:
What an interesting sounding book! I always love reading your reviews
Thank you so much!
This sounds like an amazing read! I always have a lot of respect for authors who take the time to do the historical research, which it sounds like is the case here. Nice to read something with some accuracy, it feeds the imagination!
Agreed! I can only imagine how much time was spent on research for the details and accuracy of this book.
My grandmother recommended this book to me! I guess now I really need to read it.
Ha ha you should definitely listen to your grandmother!
I also love historical fiction. This looks different than the normal things I find so I will give it a try.
Hope you enjoy it!
This sounds like a great book! I’ll have to check it out the next time I’m in the mood for historical fiction.
I hope you do, it was pretty good 🙂