DAVID: GOD'S CHOSEN CRUCIBLE (THE EMPIRE OF ISRAEL)

Ganci novelizes the rise of King David in this Christian historical novel, the second in a series.

The popular warrior and outlaw David—son of Jesse, slayer of Goliath, and hated rival of Israel’s envious King Saul—is hiding out in the wilderness of Ziph with his army of loyal warriors. With the help of his priest, Abiathar, David consults his God, Yahweh, for guidance on how to survive and serve His will. With the help of Yahweh and his own natural wit and leadership abilities, David manages to keep his men alive and free while Saul becomes distracted by Israel’s perennial enemy: the Philistines. David and Saul finally strike a truce, but David isn’t ready to trust the king. “David pondered in his soul how many times Saul had repented of his obsession to seek his destruction. But Saul always returned, like a dog to its vomit, with hate and vengeance in his heart.” David decides that he and his men may actually be safer among the Philistines than among the Israelites. When Saul and his sons are killed in battle with the Philistines, David is crowned king of Judah and Israel, and the land seems like it may finally be at peace. However, an alluring woman named Bathshua—or Bathsheba, as she comes to be known—wins the young king’s affections, and his indiscretion forces him to make a terrible choice. David may be the anointed one, but can he actually be a better king than the tyrant Saul? Ganci writes in urgent, muscular prose that transforms the antiquated descriptions of the Bible into something closer to a fantasy novel: “David was stirred to his very core and overflowed with conflicting emotions. His best friend in all of creation, Jonathan, whom he loved more than his own life, was no more. Saul, the king of all Israel, had sought his life through desert waste and forest thicket. Now he lay dead—slaughtered by an infidel.” However, he largely fails in making these familiar characters feel any more human or relatable than they do in Scripture. The dialogue is stilted, and there’s a general lack of curiosity regarding the psychological or spiritual dimensions of his characters, whose motivations feel preordained and, ultimately, quite boring.

A wooden biblical novel that falters on the level of storytelling.