Bookish Blog Format

Once a week (or so) I share snippets from my novel in progress, and passages highlighted from the books I’m reading. Enjoy the (non-spoiler) sneak peeks from my as yet Untitled 9th Historical Novel set in Scotland and Colonial Virginia, 1730s. Be sure to check out the books I’m quoting. I highly recommend them!

From My Reading

New Morning Mercies, Paul Tripp, Feb 26: For the believer, peace is not to be found in ease of life. Real peace is only ever found in the presence, power, and grace of the Savior, the King, the Lamb, the I Am. That peace is yours even when the storms of life take you beyond your natural ability, wisdom, and strength. You can live with hope and courage in the middle of what once would have produced discouragement and fear because you know you are never alone. The I Am inhabits all situations, relationships, and locations by his grace. He is in you. He is with you. He is for you. He is your hope.

Heaven, Randy Alcorn, p7: What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth. Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plan. It’s not that we want something, so we engage in wishful thinking that what we want exists. It’s the opposite–the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist. As we’ll see, resurrected people living in a resurrected universe isn’t our idea–it’s God’s.

Happiness, Randy Alcorn, p35: “My dear brothers and sisters, if anybody in the world ought to be happy, we are the people… How boundless our privileges! How brilliant our hope!” Charles Spurgeon

 

From My Writing

Excerpt from: Untitled 9th Historical Novel, Copyright 2024 Lori Benton (all rights reserved; do not copy or share without my permission). Note: To avoid spoilers, sometimes I’ll replace character names with X, Y, or Z but I’ll keep them consistent. X is always a particular character, as is Y, and Z.

Y took her papa’s arm as they traversed the creaking wharf, side-stepping the chests and casks stood over by cargo masters with their manifests. She started to interrupt a man in a woolly gray wig, hoping he might indicate the Sally Rover’s captain, when her papa nodded toward a sun-browned, barefoot seaman coming down the ship’s gangway.

 

Y stepped across his path. “I beg thy pardon, are the indentures still aboard?”

 

The seaman didn’t pause, but neatly stepped around her. “Them as ain’t been sold,” he said as he passed, “And them as won’t be.”

 

Uncertain of his meaning, they mounted the gangway, stepped aboard the Sally Rover and stood at the rail, scanning for a man not dressed in the tarred, baggy trousers of those busy with tasks on deck. One who appeared to be waiting for the next four years of his labor to be claimed.

 

“Uncle John’s agent might have thought to provide a description of…” Y looked again at the letter. “This Rupert Grant.” She frowned at the name penned in the agent’s scrawl. “Or maybe ’tis Graham.”

 

Christopher canted his head toward the fore deck. Three boys stood aligned while two men—tradesmen seeking apprentices, judging by the cut of their coats and plain wigs—bid for their indenture. A third man, one of the ship’s crew Y thought, but no common seaman by his cornered hat and well-tailored coat, stood with them. The captain? The first mate?

 

Squinting in a burst of sunlight, Y evaluated the pinched faces of the boys whose service was on offer. Pale and undernourished to a one, but they’d survived the crossing. More than could be said for the five canvas-wrapped bundles stacked against the far rail, recognizably human in form. She looked away, wondering uneasily if Rupert Grant—or Graham—was one of them.

 

Her papa was still gazing at the boys.

 

“They’re too young, Papa. And they wouldn’t let our man be bid upon. He’s bespoke.”

 

“Bespoke, is he?” a stout voice behind them queried.

 

They turned to see another man, broadly built, emerging from below decks into the breaking sunlight. He was blunt-featured and sun-browned, with pale hair tailed below a cornered hat, but like most sea-going men beyond their teens he had a face so weathered his age was hard to judge. His teeth were tobacco-stained when he bared them in an expansive smile.

 

“Doubtless then he’s one o’ these,” the man added in an accent Y placed as Irish, as he made way for others emerging up the ladder behind him. “Get you topside, lads. Let these folks have a look at you. Seems one o’ you belongs to them.”

 

One after another, four young men appeared from below, eyes narrowed to slits until the sun dipped obligingly behind cloud. Each with a bundle slung at a shoulder, they arranged themselves in a ragged line of varying heights and coloring—two sallow-faced and brown-haired, possibly brothers; a pasty blond; and a tall, gangly specimen with a face lightly freckled the same faded ginger shade as his hair. From hats to buckled shoes each was decently clothed, though their garments were stained and sour-smelling after weeks at sea. They had done what they could to present themselves neatly though. Hair was combed and tailed. Each was freshly shaved. The blond had a small nick just under his jawline, which had bled. As the broad, pale-haired man introduced himself as Captain Cox, then asked the name of the indenture they sought, the four young men bowed in near perfect unison.

 

Though the question had been addressed to her papa, Y replied, watching five male gazes flick to her with varying levels of surprise. “We’re to take into our custody one Rupert Grant… or perhaps it’s Graham.”

 

“It is Graham,” said a mild, Scots-accented voice, its tone both eager and diffident. “Or I am–Rupert Graham, that is. ‘Tis me ye want… ‘twould seem.”

 

The tall redhead stepped forward and bowed again, the freckled skin across his cheekbones blooming pink as he straightened. He was older than Y. Middle twenties perhaps. His features bore a somber caste, with full lips turned slightly downward at their corners, a long nose somewhat out of proportion to the rest of his face. Eyes of bluish gray, lashed in an even paler red than his hair, held intelligence—and what struck Y as a quiet desperation to be off that ship.

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