The Flame and the Laurel

Set in the shadow of Nero's Rome in AD 64, "The Flame and the Laurel" follows three unlikely allies brought together by the urgent need to preserve a sacred text during a time of mounting persecution. When Hannah bat Eliezer, a Jewish-Christian woman from Jerusalem, arrives in Rome carrying her father's carefully recorded Aramaic manuscript of Jesus's original teachings, she finds herself pursued by imperial authorities.

As Rome erupts in the Great Fire and Nero begins scapegoating Christian...