It’s Good to Be Queen - Book Review

When the opportunity to review Liz Curtis Higg’s newest book, It’s Good to Queen: Becoming as Bold, Gracious, and Wise as the Queen of Sheba, was presented to me I may have squealed. It may have taken me less than two-seconds to click “accept”.  Why? Because I absolutely love Liz!

Liz Curtis Higgs is an award wining wittier of historical novels. She is able to take that talent and pair it with her over flowing passion for the Lord to produce AMAZING books about the women of the bible. 

Just as she has done in her other best selling books, like the Girl’s Still Got It, Liz takes a passage of scripture and breaks it down sometimes by one to two words at a time. It’s Good to Be Queen focuses on the 13 verses of the tenth chapter of 1 Kings. The story of when the Queen of Sheba (known in this book as just “Sheba”) visits King Solomon (the son of King David).  Thirteen verses told in 163 pages of amazingly descriptive writing. We learn about Sheba’s visit to the breathtaking palace and grand temple at Solomon built. We are with her as she gains overwhelming knowledge from Solomon and when Sheba’s heart is transformed by God.  It’s Good to Be Queen does not disappoint one bit. If you are looking for an ounce of negativity towards this book, you will not be pleased by this review. I am trying my hardest to not make this a pure love letter to Liz herself. 

But on that topic (my love for Liz) let me just tell you two things she does perfectly in this and all her books. She is an uncanny ability to place you right in the middle of the story. You can fully see the gleam off of Sheba’s crown, you smell the aromas of the oils that were carefully packed for her visit with Solomon and you can feel the movement of the camels as The Queen of Sheba makes her long trek. I love that! I love that she’s helped me to understand each detail that you just can’t get from the black and white print of the bible. How does she do this so perfectly? I say it is months, sometimes years of hard work on Liz’s part. In this book, as with her others, there are over three hundreds notes of her sources. The girl researches her little heart out, from commentaries, to bible archaeology, to referencing many different scriptures of the bible, she is able to pull all of this together to form a true account of these women’s lives. 

As a part of that research Liz pulls multiple bible translations for each verse. For instance part of 1 Kings 10:1 states “to test Solomon” which Liz follows with, “Her intent was to ‘challenge him’ (NET), ‘try him’ (DRA), ‘prove him’ (ASV) and so ‘put his reputation to the test’ (MSG).” She even throws in a few LRV (the Lizzie Revised Version) of verses. By taking his extra step Liz not only helps us to fully understand the meaning of this passage, but proves she has taken the time to fully understand the context of these scriptures. Never once have I hesitated in believing Liz’s portrayal of these scriptures. 

As Liz tells us the story of the Queen of Sheba she also gives us a glimpse into her own life, her own personal struggles - places where God has met her, picked her up and brushed her off. Liz places these autobiographic pieces so perfectly into her books that it in no way feels like a memoir, but you are still so blessed by those stories just as if she was sitting next to you telling you the stories of her life. I have always loved how Liz also includes responses from hundreds (may less than that) of women that she has posed questions to through social media has she has written this book. She shares these voices in the hopes that we would say the one thing that brings me delight when people come to me and say, “You put words to how I felt, what I thought and to my struggle.” It is a such calming feeling to know we are not alone in this journey, to know there are women out there that are in the battle as well. 

I wish I could give you every passage that I underlined, circled, put a star next to or just summed up with “Amen!”, but then you would lose the pure joy of reading this book. Just know that my copy of this book is very much written on much to my husband’s disappointment (strict follower of the rule “do not write in books”).  This book lead me to questions like, “How did I miss this story before?” and has stirred in my the motivation to dig deeper into so many topics. It has been the motivation I’ve needed to begin different journeys in my own personal writing. 

As I turned what would be the last page of this story and saw a blank page I almost cried. Liz did as she has done so many times before, she sucked me in and left me with a urning to sit and hear her stories for hours, even days. When you finish this book you will sit in awe at just how absolutely amazing Liz is or shall I say how perfectly the Holy Spirit is working through this woman.  You will also learn what it takes to be “as bold, gracious, and Wise as the Queen of Sheba.” 

To learn more about the this book please visit this website, http://itsgoodtobequeen.me/. 

You can purchase a copy (that you can write all over) here: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/catalog.php?work=200229

And to learn more about this AMAZING woman, please visit this website: http://waterbrookmultnomah.com/author-spotlight.php?authorid=12930

To read me thoughts on Liz's book The Girl's Still Got It read this post: http://danaraeb.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-girls-still-got-it-must-read.html

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.