No childhood dreams had ever included residing in the palace of the Prelate of Palestine. Leah finally turned toward the elaborate courtyard with its columns and statuary, the opulent ceramic tiled baths, and the impressive marbled facade of the palace. Not even the first stirrings within the palace compound behind her could wipe out her sense of peace. Sea waves lapped gently along the promontory's edge. She lifted her face to the cry of the sea birds and the few clouds overhead. Mediterranean breezes caressed her, and Leah could not help but pause between kitchen and bath house. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. At its core, The Centurion's Wife unfolds the testing of loyalties-between two young people whose inner searchings they cannot express, between their irreconcilable heritages, and ultimately between their humanity and the Divine they yearn to encounter. This epic drama is threaded with the tale of an unlikely romance and framed with dangers and betrayals from unexpected sources. Leah's mistress, the governor's wife, secretly commissions Leah also to discover what really has become of this man whose death-and missing body-is causing such furor. Head of the garrison near Galilee, he has been assigned by Palestine's governor to ferret out the truth behind rumors of a political execution gone awry. Caught up in the maelstrom following the death of an obscure rabbi in the Roman backwater of first-century Palestine, Leah finds herself also engulfed in her own turmoil-facing the prospect of an arranged marriage to a Roman soldier, Alban, who seems to care for nothing but his own ambitions.

Janette Oke has dreamed for years of retelling a story in a biblical time frame from a female protagonist's perspective, and Davis Bunn is elated to be working with her again on this sweeping saga of the dramatic events surrounding the birth of Christianity.and the very personal story of Leah, a young Jewess of mixed heritage trapped in a vortex of competing political agendas and private trauma.

The Centurion's Wife by Janette Oke