Fiction Friday: The King's Mercy

An 18th Century Colonial Southern Epic Romance

There are two or three authors out there whose writing blows me away so much that I want to hang up my hat and call my own writing quits. Lori Benton is one of them. This girl! This story! Sweet mercy! I savored every word of The King’s Mercy.

The story starts out with a rugged Scotsman fighting for freedom but ends up landing on the wrong side of that ideal and is banished from the country. He’s sent as an indentured slave to the Colonial south, destined to become a blacksmith—an occupation he knows nothing about. And so begins the reader’s love affair with Alex MacKinnon. For reals. This is one hero who waltzes right off the page and into your heart.

But let’s not forget the heroine, eh? Joanna Carey is a spunky gal, if not sometimes a bit unsure of herself, but that simply makes her all the more endearing. She’s the perfect match for Alex, she just doesn’t realize it at first.

So, awesome characters aside, let’s talk about the writing, shall we? Sheesh. The prose is so beautiful in this one that I highlighted and dog-eared the heck out of it. Yes, I’m just that kind of monster. Lori Benton puts words together like none other. I can only aspire to write like her some day.

So do yourself a favor. Buy the book. It truly is a masterpiece.

But if you’re still not convinced, here’s a blurb giving you even more details…

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.