Showing titles in Ancient World

As a Roman trader grieves over a lost slave woman, he begins to learn about the faith that gave her enough strength to face death.

My father called them messengers. He once told me they walked among us and that somewhere in this dark and godless city, there shined a faint sliver of hope. I had only to look for the signs. Well, I’ve spent my whole life investigating the inexplicable and all I've found are the unsettling vestiges of iniquity—the evidence of another world shrouded by the obscure. Purgatory to some, where depravity hides in shadows, and girls like me are little more than delicious bites of temptation. Others call it Nightshade.

Thea is a slave girl from Judaea, passionate, musical, and guarded. Purchased as a toy for the spiteful heiress Lepida Pollia, Thea will become her mistress' rival for the love of Arius the Barbarian, Rome's newest and most savage gladiator. His love brings Thea the first happiness of her life, but that is quickly ended when a jealous Lepida tears them apart.

Atretes, a German barbarian who has won his freedom in the Roman arena, finds his life changed forever by an encounter with a young Christian woman. Atretes vows to move heaven and earth to find his son--the baby he thought was dead, and take him back to Germany. Only one thing stands in his way: Rizpah, the Christian widow who has cared for the child since his birth.

When Xerxes, king of Persia, issues a call for beautiful young women, Hadassah, a Jewish orphan living in Susa, is forcibly taken to the palace of the pagan ruler. After months of preparation, the girl known to the Persians as Esther wins the king's heart and a queen's crown. But because her situation is uncertain, she keeps her ethnic identity a secret until she learns that an evil and ambitious man has won the king's permission to exterminate all Jews - young and old, powerful, and helpless.

Bethany Carter, on the brink of despair following her parents' tragic murder, ardently pursues her dream of becoming a human rights lawyer. But rejected by prospective employers, she questions whether she will ever find the solace—or the closure—she seeks. So when a mysterious old woman presents with the opportunity to alter her fate, Beth steps through an archway in a dilapidated castle and finds herself catapulted back through time—and right into peril.

Follow Odysseus after he leaves the fallen city of Troy and takes ten long dramatic years - battling monsters, the temptations of goddesses and suffering the curse of Poseidon - to voyage home to his wife Penelope on the island of Ithaca.

Elianna is a young girl crushed by guilt. After her only brother is killed while in her care, Elianna tries to earn forgiveness by working for her father's textile trade and caring for her family. When another tragedy places Elianna in sole charge of the business, her talent for design brings enormous success but never the absolution she longs for. As her world unravels, she breaks off her betrothal to the only man she will ever love. Then illness strikes, isolating Elianna from everyone, stripping everything she has left.

Desperate to keep his children and clan from starving, Laird Alasdair MacLachlan joins the ranks of mercenaries searching for the missing lass of a powerful clan. The mission seems simple—find the lass, return her to her family, and claim the hefty reward. But when fate throws Sorcha MacGregor in his path, he discovers just how complicated one mule-headed, beguiling beauty can make things.

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.

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.

Isolation, darkness, and rotting flesh surround me, suffocate me, but I am the vile ruler who controls it all. I long for warmth, yet all that I touch is cold. Then, she stumbles in to my domain, lost and frightened, alone and confused. And I terrify her even more. She calls me the devil, so I show her pleasure, like only the devil can. I am the heat that stirs her flesh, the longing that trembles her bone. She begs her body to refuse, to escape my embrace, but I am her master, the puppeteer of passion. I am the King of Flesh and Bone. Welcome to my court, little one.

Abigail was born free, but when her parents die, she's sold into slavery to the family of a Roman soldier in Jerusalem. Fortunately, the Visibullis family is kind, and as years pass, she's proud to serve them. But Abigail's beauty attracts unwanted attention when their son, Jason, returns from Rome. She doesn't dare to defy him...but how can she ever love him as he demands? As Jerusalem boils with political unrest and the stories of a rabbi named Jesus who snags Jason's attention, Abigail struggles to find her new place in the family.

Originally printed in 1965. HELEN Queen of Sparta, daughter of Aphrodite, a disciple of Eros “Never has there been such a woman as you...? Words whispered in the perfumed shadows of a palace bedchamber, before the altar of a pagan god, within the seclusion of a forest glade ... words were spoken in awed adoration by kings and generals and heroic warriors, to a woman whose uncontrollable passion would change the course of history! Cover illustration by Kurt Brugel

After being branded during the battle of Jericho, Moriyah has had no prospects for marriage - until now. She hopes to please the man, but things go horribly wrong and she is forced to flee for her life. Seeking safety at one of the Levitical cities of refuge, she is unprepared for the dangers she faces, and the enemies - and allies - she encounters on her way. Seven years ago, Moriyah was taken captive in Jericho and branded with the mark of the Canaanite gods. Now the Israelites are experiencing peace in their new land, but Moriyah has yet to find her own peace. Because of the shameful mark on her face, she hides behind her veil at all times.

1444 A.D.: She's a mercenary, a tough lady warrior known as the Lady of the Moon. Samarra le Brecque is hired by the father of a reluctant groom to take his son to the Caves of St. Agnes in Cornwall, where the groom's intended will be waiting. According to local legend, if a man and a woman touch the red stains upon the walls of the cave, said to be left by doomed lovers, then the man and woman shall fall in love forever. But the situation doesn't go as planned.

Aya, daughter of Zebulun of Tarsus, does not want a traditional life. After years of being overshadowed by her brilliant brother Sha’ul, she wants a chance to use her own gifts beyond being a wife and mother. When her father insists that she marry a Torah student, she reluctantly agrees.

Sold by her impoverished mother. Enslaved in an infamous brothel in Pompeii. Determined to fight for her freedom at all costs. . . . Enter into the Wolf Den.

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 Chariline sneaks on the ship of a merchant trusted by friends.

Six strapping warriors are determined to lay down the law. The women who claim them as mates might think they have the upper hand, but they’re about to discover what it means to be loved by a Viking.