Guest Post from Channing Turner, author of Jonathan’s Shield

I got the idea for Jonathan’s Shield several years ago when I stumbled onto the story In 1^st Samuel. It’s a little remembered incident where Prince Jonathan, accompanied only by his loyal shield bearer, climbs a hill and routs a Philistine outpost to win the battle for Israel. That shield bearer was never named nor heard from again. I thought he at least deserved a name. Beral. Beral then watches and tells the subsequent story of David and Jonathan to its conclusion. My intent was to fill this biblical tale with real people—people like us, with flaws and shortcomings who occasionally display instances of noble behavior. After all, when you look beneath the dry wording of stories in the Bible, you see some pretty dramatic stuff. It’s better than reality television.

When you write a novel like this, you can’t help but come to like—maybe love—some of your characters. Of course, it’s easy to like Beral. After all he’s the main guy, and he’s conflicted because he’s a good and loyal man. But I also have a warm spot for Zelig, the gruff old warrior with many of those same traits. However, Zelig is older and wiser. He already knows about the weaknesses of men and women. He sees his role as mentor to young Beral. Then there’s King Saul. He is paranoid and losing his grip so at this stage in his life so it’s hard to like him. I tried to hint at the character of the man he used to be when Yahweh chose him to be the first king of Israel. I don’t know if I succeeded at that. Probably not.

Anyone writing a historical novel has to do some research. I suppose how much depends on how true to life you want to be. Fortunately for me, I enjoy history. I read a lot of books and articles about the setting and time of this story. Sometimes I would start reading about some particular subject and forget I was supposed to be writing instead. I can’t say all of it was fun, but there is a certain amount of satisfaction you get when you complete a project like this. I only hope readers find it to their liking too.

To learn more please visit Channing Turner’s website. 

You can pick up his novel here:   Kindle US   Kindle UK    Paperback

Just in case you missed Pal Judi Moore’s review for Jonathan’s Shield last Friday, here is the link to her review.

About the author: A son of the South, Channing Turner grew up in Arkansas and Louisiana before graduating from Louisiana State University in Psychology. He did graduate work in marine biology and became an estuarine biologist along the Texas coast. After retiring from the petrochemical industry where he worked in Louisiana and Montana as a laboratory analyst, he managed the 2010 US Census in Montana and northern Wyoming. He now lives in eastern Washington with his wife, Barb.

Channing served in the army and was discharged as an Armor captain. Reading and writing are his sedentary pursuits, but he also enjoys riding his Tennessee Walker in the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon.

Jonathan’s Shield by Channing Turner

Genre: Historical fiction

Description:

“Beral's only goal is to serve loyally as Jonathan's shield bearer and protect his prince through whatever battles may come. But Jonathan needs a friend as well, a man he can trust while navigating the precarious footing of his father's court. Being that friend puts Beral's life in danger and stretches his loyalty to the breaking point. For what Jonathan wants is to do Yahweh's will, whether that be through defying his increasingly paranoid father, King Saul, or supporting the aspirations of young David, whom Jonathan believes is the rightful heir to the throne. 

As he competes with David for the hand of the king's daughter, Beral struggles to hold true to his loyalties, even while he watches King Saul descend into madness. If Yahweh withdraws his protective hand, Beral and his men will be all that stand before their gathering enemies. Only one thing is certain: Beral's fate, as well as the future of Israel, is tied to the virtue of their king, and Saul's honor has long since fled.”

Author:

His publishers (Red Adept Publishing) say of him: “A son of the South, Channing Turner grew up in Arkansas and Louisiana before graduating from Louisiana State University in Psychology. He did graduate work in marine biology and became an estuarine biologist along the Texas coast. After retiring from the petrochemical industry where he worked in Louisiana and Montana as a laboratory analyst, he managed the 2010 US Census in Montana and northern Wyoming. He now lives in eastern Washington with his wife, Barb.

Channing served in the army and was discharged as an Armor captain. Reading and writing are his sedentary pursuits, but he also enjoys riding his Tennessee Walker in the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon.”

This, I believe, is his first published novel. To learn more about Mr. Turner feel free to visit his website or follow him on Facebook.

Appraisal:

I enjoyed Jonathan’s Shield very much. Turner has gone to the Bible, and imagined what the arc of the extraordinary events described in the Book of Samuel might actually have been. The Bible is fruitful ground for writers. I’ve worked up a fictional ‘what if’ from the New Testament myself. It offers lots of opportunities for one to fill in all the frustrating gaps in the story which have occurred in its transmission through time and various languages down to us today. But it is, of course, a fiction. It is not a Christian book. It may, indeed, be a book some Christians will find strays too far into fictional territory. There is plenty of smiting, a lot of treachery, and hubris gets its comeuppance, but there is also a fair amount of sex.

The book deals with what happened when the Israelites, under King Saul, got fed up with being pushed around by the Philistines in particular and most of their neighbours in general and fought back. Historical figures about whom we know rather less than, perhaps, we think we do – Saul, Jonathan and David – get plenty of time on stage and Samuel the prophet has himself an important role to play; the events of the book are observed, experienced and related by Beral, the shield bearer of the title.

Turner uses a verse from Samuel as an epigraph before each chapter, and what follows expands on that, rolling the sparse source material together and forward to build an exciting story. The author has a good, plain style without frills or furbelows which suits his subject matter well and keeps the story moving at a goodly clip. He knows how to pace a story, what to put in, what to leave out. This is a lean, mean, fighting machine: lots of battles occur and are excitingly related. Even the drilling of soldiers to become an everyman army, with the tricks of how to catch the men’s imagination and commitment, and revelations about Beral the narrator in the mix, is riveting.

Turner fleshes out female characters as well as male ones (not something the Bible does much of) and the book is the richer for this, as women are often motivation for upheavals in empire as well as beside the domestic hearth. Seeing both genders in their familial and societal roles lends verisimilitude and depth to the work as a whole.

Despite the small quibbles below, this is a work that is well worth your time if you enjoy biblical era epics, adventures set in the Holy Land, or sword and sandal fiction in general. And if you haven’t tried any, this book is a fine place to start.

Buy now from:     Kindle US     Kindle UK     Paperback

FYI:

In a few places, tiny infelicities of expression left me puzzled as to who someone was, or why the plot had just taken the turn it had. If you go with the flow it soon comes clear. Two such instances: who is Miriam? (she is a slave of Saul’s who Beral acquires as a maid later on when one has quite forgotten her earlier, momentary, walk-through part). And a second: why does David bring his brothers food? They are in the army, he is not – yet he is part of Saul’s entourage and it is odd if he doesn’t know that all food is shared via a commissariat system. It is, of course, an authorial device for getting him to the army camp, which just needs a teensy tweak to work perfectly.

Format/Typo Issues:

None. Looks very good on the page.

Rating: ***** Five stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words