Bathsheba / Jill Eileen Smith / 346 pages / R. T. Reviewer's Choice Award

David "was a man devoted, consumed in his passion for the Lord his God.  A generous man who had learned the gratitude that comes of sins forgiven."  His great love for Bathsheba caused him to sin and take her for his own even though she was the wife of one of his honored Thirty.  When she became pregnant, rather that have her renounced by Uriah and stoned, David had Uriah, her husband, moved to the front lines in battle where he as sure to be killed.  David and Bathsheba's son, Solomon, was left with the task to build a great temple to Adonai, which David has planned and amassed a treasure for, and to reunite the people of Israel who had been disheartened by their king's conduct.