Become better acquainted with the real, historical Herod, rather than the evil baby killer portrayed by Christian tradition
A popular, intelligent man who led from the front - he was an athletes, a soldier, a statesman and a devotee of higher learning
He came from a wealthy family, whose father and grandfather were international bankers and was spoken of as “the friends of kings”
He was born during the conflict in Judea, between change and tradition and between priest and palace
We see history repeating it’s self - the struggle between east and west - the ideologies of east & west fighting for the minds of men
Originally written in the 1950s it was still an interesting historical read
“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you”
Thanks #zoranealehurston @hqstories & @netgalley for the interesting read

While I liked what Hurston was trying to achieve with this, I never really got into it. Not sure why, I think because of the writing style.

Interesting, especially the preface and the text and commentary around it, but I found it difficult to get into and difficult to follow. I enjoyed the historical aspect but found myself having to research a lot of it as my knowledge of the era was very limited.

I love Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. It's sharp, funny, smart and brilliantly written. Without it books like The Color Purple would simply not exist and we would be all the poorer for it.

This book however, is one for the die hard fans, completists and academics of her work. It was incomplete at the time of her death and has been published with some letters she wrote about her research and summaries of what was to come. That's the stuff that's really interesting to me, but the actual book itself I found hard work. It's clear that there was a huge amount of academic research that got done and condensing all of that into the form of a novel is hard work and for me, not very successful here. What characterisation there is is boiled down to simple sentences stating mood or intention and the compression of character and the necessity of editing down a huge, historical timeline leaves me feeling short changed and like we are constantly rushing from set piece to set piece. There are also, for a historical novel, occasionally jarring modern analogies which don't help. For me, this feels like a draft of something that had she had time, could have been a really powerful work.

A fascinating read about a historical figure that I never had considered learning about before - it's the authors name that swung my choice here. A super informative read.

I've been a fan of novels retelling event from history/the bible for a long time - I read Diamant's Red Tent on publication back in 1997 and this one appealed instantly.
While it isn't quite a complete book due to being published posthumously and using letters and notes to fill in the gaps I found it really readable and it helped to link bits of history and literature that I was already aware of together and pull everything into a timeframe that really made sense to me. Due to the way the book has been put together I did find the first two thirds more detailed and engrossing, the last part did seem to cover a lot of ground very quickly and without the depth but it was still a really good read.
I will certainly be looking out for more of Neale Hurston's books.

It’s interesting to learn more about the figure of Herod the Great outside the limited and possibly false image we have of him from the Bible but I have to admit I found this book a little slow and difficult to engage with. I’m not quite clear if it’s because of the time it was written (the 1950s), an attempt to take a suitably historical tone or because it was unfinished and possibly unpolished by the author, but I personally found it a little slow and had to struggle to finish it (I will caveat that by saying the busy festive period was possibly not the best time to try and read something that required concentration!) Not my personal cup of tea, I’m afraid, but there was still a lot to admire in this book and I certainly learned a lot.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy in return for an honest review.