The Heart of a King

Jill Eileen Smith's latest novel, The Heart of a King, takes you back to ancient Israel, to the ending of King David's reign and to the ascension to the throne of his son, Solomon. Solomon has been renowned as the wisest of kings, and this book gives us an insight into his life and the lives of four women he loves, a fictionalized account grounded in Scripture.

Naamah the Ammonite, mother of Rehoboam who will be king after Solomon. Abishag the shepherdess, first a wife of King David as he nears the end of his life, then a wife of Solomon. Siti, headstrong daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh and worshiper of a foreign goddess. Nicaula, Queen of Sheba. Each of these women were important to Solomon, although they numbered as just a few among his many wives and concubines. Solomon asked God for wisdom, and God gave that wisdom to him. Clearly, though, it didn't keep him from making mistakes in his relationships with women.

Abishag was my favorite. She was unsure of herself at times, and sometimes longed to go back to her life among the sheep. But she was intelligent and kind, and when Naamah was clearly jealous of her, she sought common ground so that their relationship could improve.

Naamah was terribly needy. She was Solomon's first wife, and the mother of his firstborn son, and she wanted very much to be his only wife. She struggled with the fact that what she wanted would not come to pass.

Siti was probably my least favorite of the four, and to my reading, she gave Solomon the most grief. She pushed him to allow her to worship the goddess Bastet in Jerusalem, even though Solomon knew – and told her – that God prohibited the worship of foreign gods. She regrets her actions later, but she drove Solomon farther from his faith than he would have gone had she not been in the picture.

Nicaula was a queen in her own right. Solomon loved her deeply, but could not keep her. She had her own responsibilities, and was not willing to give her kingdom up to be queen of his. And I can't fault her for that. She took her duties to her people seriously, and after a short time, she left Solomon and went to tend to business.

Solomon. Ah, Solomon. He had sense enough to ask God for wisdom, rather than wealth or long life or military might, and so God gave him wisdom and more as well. Solomon was very wealthy, a very prosperous king. Yet he took multiple wives and concubines, going against the wisdom God gave him, and he saw that so much of life was futile, striving after things. But even Solomon can learn from difficulty.

The story is roughly equally divided among the four women. King David and Queen Bathsheba both appear in the story, and their roles are not large, but they are significant. David gives advice on kingship to his son, and Bathsheba offers a listening ear and wise counsel to the four wives of Solomon that we meet in the story.

This is a fictionalized account of a Biblical story. It expands on what we read in Scripture, and I think it's a well-imagined account of what Solomon's life and interaction with some of the women in it could have been like. If you enjoy historical fiction, if you've ever spent time imagining what actually happened as you read through the Bible, then this is a book you should check out.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of the book from Revell. All opinions here are mine, and I don't say nice things about books I don't like.