1. Egypt’s Sister
Chava, the Jewish daughter of a royal tutor, grows up beside Cleopatra and believes their friendship can survive the queen’s rise to power. A rupture between them instead strips Chava of family and privilege and carries her through enslavement into Rome, where personal survival becomes entangled…
2. Judah’s Wife
Leah seeks a safe marriage after a violent childhood and finds gentleness in a man connected to the family of Mattathias. Safety proves temporary when the Seleucid king’s decrees attack Jewish worship and turn local accommodation into a question of covenant, resistance and survival. As Judah…
3. Jerusalem’s Queen
After the deaths of her father and sister, Salome is brought with her mother into a relative’s household in Jerusalem. A marriage arranged for dynastic reasons joins her to a younger prince whose ambitions and religious position draw her steadily towards the centre of Hasmonean politics.…
4. The King’s Shadow
Salome, sister of Herod the Great, has learned to survive by identifying threats before they can reach the king or herself. Her Idumaean origins and hunger for recognition sharpen a suspicion that turns family relations into evidence of conspiracy, while Zara, her Jewish handmaid, sees pain…