For readers of Sara Donati and Diana Gabaldon, this epic historical romance tells of fateful love between an indentured Scotsman and a daughter of the 18th century colonial south.
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.
-
Sexual Content - 1/5
1/5
-
Violence - 1/5
1/5
-
Language - 0/5
0/5
-
Drugs and Alcohol - 0/5
0/5
Summary
From: Rebecca Maney
Book Title: The King's Mercy
Book Author: Lori Benton
What do you like about this book:
"If there's a God, I wouldna trust Him with anything of matter to me."
Scotsman Alastair Seamus MacKinnon's heart for God was abandoned on the battlefield, a casualty of the failed Jacobite uprising. Granted the "king's mercy", after surviving the deplorable conditions aboard a British prison ship, Alex's freedom consisted of banishment to the Colony of North Carolina as an indentured servant; a virtual servant for the period of seven long years.
Upon arrival at Severn Plantation, Ales begins his apprenticeship as the new blacksmith and immediately notices the unusual dynamics between Edmund Carey, owner of the vast property, Carey's stepdaughter Joanna, the overseer Phineas Reeves, and the numerous slaves on the property. But it's an aged preacher man who speaks the words that Alex doesn't really want to hear, " . . . . the Almighty God has allowed you, by whatever series of events and decisions brought you to it, to be in this place - 'for such a time as this' one might venture to say. If you allow it, there will be good to come of it. For yourself. Perhaps for Joanna. And others."
Joanna . . . the one whose eyes were "as changeable as the sea. Green one day; gray the next, then blue as a rising storm . . . "
Reading a book by Lori Benton could be likened to standing by the edge of that virtual sea, reverently watching its tide roll in; inch by marvelous inch, until once bare feet become submerged beneath the majesty of an ocean wave. Her stories are not only beautifully written, but intentionally shaped; words flowing up and down and all around until her readers are living and breathing alongside her characters; "The King's Mercy" is certainly no exception.
I received this book from the author and publisher. The opinions stated above are entirely my own.
Your ratings of the level of sex, violence, language and drug/alcohol use on a scale of 1-5.
Sex:1
Violence:1
Language:0
Drug/Alcohol use:0