Every Knee Shall Bow by Bryan Litfin

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316 – Roman Empire

Imperial persecution has ended, but Christianity’s future still hangs in the balance. Will churches rise in Rome where pagan temples once stood? Will the true Scriptures replace the myths of the gods? Will Jupiter finally bow the knee to the Lord Jesus?

For the first time in history, the Roman emperor supports the church. Bishop Sylvester sends Flavia from her convent to seek Emperor Constantine’s permission to build great churches and determine the canon of Scripture. But the enemies of God are on the move. Joined by Rex, Flavia’s beloved protector who has fought his way out of exile, the two friends cross the empire by land and sea on an epic quest to free the Roman people from the tyranny of the ancient gods.

Bristling with tension and undergirded by impeccable historical research, this tale of courage, defiance, and humble submission to God continues the captivating saga of two unlikely allies in the age of imperial Christianity.

A Time to Weep by Tracy Higley

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68/1922 – Roman Empire/Egypt

Sometimes the only way forward is back.

Sahara Aldridge, a young Egyptologist in 1922, is chasing down the trail of her parents through the unknown corridors of time.

But when all clues point to Ancient Rome as the next place to search, Sahara retreats into the safety of her archaeological work, cataloguing treasures from the newly-discovered tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

As the discovery of the intact tomb propels the world into a frenzy of “Tut-mania,” the ever-present Jack Moretti is there to help, but what is his agenda?

And it appears Tempus Vigilia isn’t going to leave her alone. The secret society has sent others, tracking her movements and asking too many questions.

Now it seems her family is in danger. Sahara must once again put her career on hold, to find what she has lost. But will Ancient Rome hold the answers, or only one more reason to grieve?

More Than Honor by Carol Ashby

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126 – Roman Empire

Duty and honor had anchored his life, but only truth could set him free.

Devotion to duty and dogged determination make Tribune Titianus the most feared investigator of the Urban Cohort. Honor drives him to hunt down anyone who breaks Roman law, but it becomes personal when Lenaeus, his old tutor, is murdered in his own classroom. Why kill a respected teacher of the noble sons of Rome, a man who has nothing worth stealing and no known enemies? Had he learned something too dangerous to let him live?

Pompeia was only a girl when Titianus studied with Father before her family became Christians. She and her brother Kaeso can’t move their school from the house where their father was killed. But what if the one who killed Father comes to kill again? Kaeso’s friend Septimus insists they spend nights at his father’s well-guarded home. But danger lurks there as well. As Titianus hunts for the murderer, will he discover their secret faith and arrest them as enemies of the Empire?

When Titianus gets too close to finding the killer, the hunter becomes the hunted. While he recovers at his cousin Septimus’s house, Pompeia becomes the first woman to touch his heart. But a tribune’s loyalty is sworn to Rome, no matter how he feels. When her faith is revealed, will truth and love mean more to him than honor? Does honor require more than devotion to Rome?

Alone at the Well: Photine’s Story by Sandi Rog

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27 – Israel

On Photine’s daily trek to Jacob’s well, one step forward is another step back into her past as she relives the dismal events of her life. All she knows is brokenness, much like the waterpot she carries on her head. Rejection from those who used to be her friends is now commonplace. Failure should be her name. After all, who else in all of Samaria has gone through five husbands? And now she no longer sacrifices for her sins. Why bother when she’s just going to commit the same act every single day? She no longer cares.

Then one day, a day that started out like all the others, she meets a man at the well who offers something she had all but given up on. Hope. Hope for healing… Hope for forgiveness. Hope for new life. Can she dare believe that His promises are meant for someone so broken? Someone so lost? Someone like…her?

Jewel of the Nile by Tessa Afshar

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56 – Italy

Whispered secrets about her parents’ past take on new urgency for Chariline as she pays one last visit to the land of her forefathers, the ancient kingdom of Cush.

Raised as an orphan by her aunt, Chariline has only been told a few pieces of her parents’ tragic love story. Her beautiful dark skin is proof that her father was Cushite, but she knows nothing else. While visiting her grandfather before his retirement as the Roman official in the queen’s court, Chariline overhears that her father is still alive, and discovering his identity becomes her obsession. Both her grandfather and the queen have reasons for keeping this secret, however, and forbid her quest. So when her only clues lead to Rome, Chariline sneaks on the ship of a merchant trusted by friends.

Theo is shocked to discover a stowaway on board his vessel and determines to be rid of her as soon as possible. But drawn in by Chariline’s story, he feels honor-bound to see her safely to shore, especially when it appears someone may be willing to kill for the truth she seeks.

In this transformative tale of historical fiction, bestselling author Tessa Afshar brings to life the kingdom of Cush and the Roman Empire, introducing readers to a fascinating world filled with gripping adventure, touching romance, and a host of lovable characters—including some they may recognize from the biblical book of Acts.

A Woman of Words by Angela Hunt

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40s – Israel

Disciple Matthew, a former tax collector, is invited to work with Peter, James, and John in Jerusalem. He dreams of preaching and performing miracles like his fellow apostles, but he finds his dreams postponed because of a request from Yeshua’s mother. Well aware of the passing years, Mary asks Matthew to help her record the stories of Yeshua while the eyewitnesses are still alive. Reluctantly, he agrees, though the longer he and Mary work together, the more difficult their task becomes. Not only are they pressured by opposition from friends and foes alike, but Gaius Caesar, better known as Caligula, is determined to raise a statue of himself in the Holy Temple, even if it means killing every man in Israel. As Matthew works to save his people, Mary encourages him to come to terms with issues from his past. When they finally near the completion of their project, Matthew realizes that the job he reluctantly accepted might be his God-given destiny.

At the Cross by Ashton E. Dorow

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Easter – Jerusalem

Experience the Easter Story through the eyes of those who witnessed it…

PETER: The disciple who denied the One he swore to follow even to the end.

SIMON OF CYRENE: An ordinary man whose path unexpectedly collides with that of a stranger condemned to death.

FELIX MAXIMUS: A Roman centurion charged with carrying out a crucifixion unlike any he’s overseen before.

MARY: A mother struggling with the death of her firstborn son.

MARY OF MAGDALA: A woman faced with the shocking discovery that the body of the man who delivered her from seven demons has vanished.

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus impacts each of their lives in a different way… But this impact is one that will reach into eternity.

Hope’s Reward by Carol Ashby

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120s – Roman Empire/Traveling

Must the secrets we hide destroy our hope for a future?

For a gladiator slave, each time you step on the sand, it’s kill or die. When Ursus decides to follow Jesus, he must choose to die the next time he’s ordered to fight…or run away. He runs, taking again his childhood name, Matti. But he isn’t just trying to escape. He’s running to Thessalonica, where he hopes to find other Christians like the woman who led him to faith.

When Felicia’s new husband, Falco, almost kills her in a fit of rage, her uncle won’t help her end the marriage with his business partner. He will send her to her sister in Thessalonica, but only if she tells no one she plans to divorce Falco and demand her dowry back before she gets there. When Matti interrupts a robbery too late to save Felicia’s money for traveling by sea, he offers to bodyguard and escort her overland to their mutual destination.

After Matti risks everything to save her from Falco’s assassins, Felicia fears taking the danger to her sister’s family. When his Christian friends take them in, she discovers the deepest desires of her heart. But will the secrets of Matti’s past make a future together impossible?

Missionary of Hope: Priscilla’s Story

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40s – Roman Empire

Priscilla has big plans for her future. As a pampered daughter of Rome, educated and ambitious, she has one goal: to serve as Emperor Claudius’s historian. But all that changes when she is betrayed by her jealous brother. Instead of a life of wealth and history, she is forced to marry Aquila, a tentmaker, who had served her family for years before he bought his freedom. Stripped of her name and ambitions, Priscilla must adjust to her new life as a woman likely to be forgotten. But the God who “works all things together for the good of those who love Him” has a different path for Priscilla. She soon finds herself walking alongside the saints, not just recording stale words of past deeds, but living out the fresh hope sweeping the empire.

No Stone Cast: Eliyanah’s Story by Carole Towriss

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29 – Israel

Eliyanah is content with her simple life, serving the poor and outcast in the tiny village of Bethany. She dreams of marrying the love of her life, Eleazar. But her dreams are shattered when her stepfather betroths her to a wealthy spice merchant from Jerusalem. Away from her childhood home, Eliyanah finds herself lonely and aimless—her life’s sole purpose now is to bear a son and an heir for her neglectful and abusive husband.

In her despair, Eliyanah turns to the arms of another man, even though she knows the penalty for such a sin should she be caught. When the inevitable happens, and she is dragged—shamed and humiliated—before the enraged Pharisees, a Savior steps in. In place of judgment, He offers mercy. In lieu of guilt’s wages, He offers grace. How can she ever repay such love?

The Conqueror by Bryan Litfin

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312 – Italy

It is AD 312. Rome teeters on the brink of war. Constantine’s army is on the move. On the Rhine frontier, Brandulf Rex, a pagan Germanic barbarian, joins the Roman army as a spy and special forces operative. Down in Rome, Junia Flavia, the lovely and pious daughter of a nominally Christian senator, finds herself embroiled in anti-Christian politics as she works on behalf of the church.

As armies converge and forces beyond Rex’s and Flavia’s controls threaten to destroy everything they have worked for, these two people from different worlds will have to work together to bring down the evil Emperor Maxentius. But his villainous plans and devious henchmen are not easily overcome. Will the barbarian warrior and the senator’s daughter live to see the Empire bow the knee to Christ? Or will their part in the story of Constantine’s rise meet an untimely and brutal end?

Travel back to one of the most pivotal eras in history–a time when devotion to the pagan gods was fading and the Roman Empire was being conquered by the sign of the cross.

The Shepherd’s Wife by Angela Hunt

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30s – Israel

Yeshua of Nazareth has two sisters: Damaris, married to a wealthy merchant’s son, and Pheodora, married to a simple shepherd from Bethlehem. When Pheodora’s husband suffers an unexpected reversal of fortune and is thrown into debtor’s prison, she returns to Nazareth, where she pins her hopes on two she-goats who should give birth to spotless white kids that would be perfect for the upcoming Yom Kippur sacrifice.

In the eighteen months between the kids’ birth and the opportunity to sell them and redeem her husband from prison, Pheodora must call on her wits, her family, and her God in order to provide for her daughters and survive. But when every prayer and ritual she knows is about God’s care for Israel, how can she trust that God will hear and help a lowly shepherd’s wife?

Rich Beyond Measure: Zlata’s Story by Robin Lee Hatcher

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33 AD – Israel

After losing her parents, husband, and child, Zlata is left dependent upon her in-laws who regard her as nothing more than a servant.

Worse still, she is left with a heart overcome by bitterness.

But then she hears a new teacher speaking. He says that she is blessed although she is poor and in mourning. She thinks this Yeshua might be the madman that her father-in-law, a Pharisee, claims Him to be.

Yet she can’t stop seeking Him out and listening to what He has to say because His words are making her feel whole again. Then her father-in-law threatens to turn her out if she seeks out Yeshua one more time.

Will fear hold her back or will she dare to trust Yeshua by giving God everything she possesses?

An Eternal Love by Melanie Dobson

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39 – Israel

AFTER TABITHA LOSES her husband to the sea, God gives her the unexpected gift of a son and a new faith to follow the resurrected Messiah. Tabitha thrives amongst her community of believers in the sea-side village of Joppa. There, she teaches widows, and a slave girl named Korinna, how to sew while she makes her living as a seamstress. She loves her adopted son, but when his recklessness threatens to destroy their entire community, Tabitha’s heart breaks. Only a miracle can bring Matthias back to her and all those who care for him. A miracle, perhaps, from beyond the grave.

The Light by Buck Storm

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33 – Israel

Historically, culturally, and biblically accurate. The Christ story as you’ve never seen it before. What happens when the hard line between life and death blurs? When Joseph of Arimathea took Yeshua’s corpse off the cross and placed it in his own tomb he risked everything he’d worked years for. But now Yeshua’s body is gone, and Joseph is running for his life. Sister has never known anything but the Lower City slums. She’s a creature of the night, so base and inconsequential she’s never even warranted a name.Welcome to 1st century Jerusalem, where rumor and deceit rule the day. Step into The Light and walk the ancient city side-by-side with the very first believers. Feel what they felt. Risk what they risked. And find, with them, the unshakeable truth indelibly written across the heavens before time began–Yeshua changes everything. And Everything is never what you expect.

Daughter of Cana by Angela Hunt

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27 – Israel

Thomas and Tasmin, twin siblings hired to oversee a wedding feast in Cana, worry when the host runs out of wine . . . until a guest tells Tasmin to have the servants fill the pitchers by the gate with water from the cistern. Reluctantly, she obeys and is amazed when rainwater turns into the finest wine ever tasted in Cana.

When Thomas impulsively decides to follow the teacher from Nazareth, he and Tasmin argue–since the twins have been together since the womb, Tasmin can’t accept losing her brother to some magician-prophet. Aided by Jude, younger brother to Jesus of Nazareth, she decides to follow the Nazarene’s group and do whatever she must to mend the fractured relationship and bring her brother home.

Daughter of Rome by Tessa Afshar

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40s – Roman Empire

A woman with a devastating secret. A man bent on proving his worth. A chance encounter that catapults them into the heart of history.

When the daughter of a prominent Roman general meets a disinherited Jewish immigrant, neither one can dream of God’s plan to transform them into the most influential couple of the early church. Nor can they anticipate the mountains that will threaten to bury them. Their courtship unwittingly shadowed by murder and betrayal, Priscilla and Aquila slowly work to build a community of believers, while their lives grow increasingly complicated thanks to a shaggy dog, a mysterious runaway, and a ruthless foe desperate for love. But when they’re banished from their home by a capricious emperor, they must join forces with an unusual rabbi named Paul and fight to turn treachery into redemption.

A Perilous Journey: Phoebe’s Story by Mary DeMuth

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57 – At Sea

Tasked with taking the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome, Phoebe embarks on a tumult-filled journey over land and sea accompanied by her closest friend and a mysterious freed slave. Already having suffered persecution for her stalwart belief in Yeshua, Phoebe must overcome deep betrayal, a violent pirate raid, and the loss of every scrap of security she’s ever had, to travel to an unknown location and deliver Paul’s greatest treatise of the faith.

Will she find the resources and the trust she needs to complete the seemingly impossible task? Or will the ever-multiplying obstacles before her strangle her resolve?

A Death Well Lived by Daniel Overdorf

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29 – Israel

Lucius Valerius Galeo personifies the Roman Empire’s ambition and dominance. An egotistical centurion, his swagger betrays his arrogance and his blood-stained fists evidence his quick temper. He serves in Judea, quelling Jewish riots in Caesarea’s hippodrome and doing the bidding of the governor, Pontius Pilate, from Jerusalem’s fortress of Antonia. The Jewish people repulse him.

Lucius grows intrigued when protesting Jews lay their necks open to the sword―his sword―in response to Pilate’s desecration of their temple. His heart softens when a Jewish couple shows compassion to his children and their mother. His inner turmoil reaches its peak when a rabbi from Galilee arrives in Jerusalem. The rabbi’s teaching and miracles force Lucius to wrestle with his deepest assumptions and desires. Will he choose the ruthless power of Rome or the eternal power of Christ?

A Death Well Lived is a captivating tale set in first century Judea that offers hope for the worst among us and the worst within us.

The Healer’s Touch: Tikva’s Story by Connilyn Cossette

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28 – Israel

When Jewish sailor’s wife Tikva received word, more than a decade ago, of a family tragedy, the shock of the news sent her into premature labor, and she delivered a stillborn son. From that time until this, despite chasing after a multitude of healers’ promises and spending all she had on torturous treatments, she hasn’t been able to stop the resulting hemorrhaging. The doctor she saw today, like all the others, had given her lofty promises of a cure but turned out to be yet another charlatan. Defeated, Tikva returns home to her aged mother-in-law, who has heard tell of a miracle-working Rabbi visiting their province. Does Tikva dare hold out one last hope for healing?