After a life of passion and adventure that has brought her through
slavery to the Resurrection garden, through the controversies of the
early Church to a hermit cave in southern Gaul, Maeve, the Celtic Mary
Magdalen, returns to the Holy Isles accompanied by Sarah, her daughter
with Jesus. Their mission: to find Maeve's firstborn child, stolen from
her by the druids more than 40 years ago. Since then Maeve's homeland
has suffered its own trials--Roman invasion and occupation. The Celtic
tribes to the east and south are under direct rule, and the Romans are
determined to rout the resistance of the western tribes, resistance
fueled by the druids of Mona. Just before she crosses the channel from
Gaul to Britain, Maeve encounters a man she mistakes for Jesus' ghost.
This familiar stranger is equally haunted, and the two are drawn into a
moonstruck liaison that will entwine their lives in "an impossible
Celtic knot." For, unbeknownst to Maeve at the time, he is none other
than General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the newly appointed Roman
governor of Britain. Maeve keeps this troubling tryst a secret even
after she finds her long-lost daughter, Boudica, the fierce and
charismatic queen of the Iceni tribe. Druid-trained in her youth,
Boudica married the Iceni king, hoping to rally him to a rebellion for
which he has no stomach. Now estranged from her husband, Boudica keeps
the old ways, sustained by her pride in her descent from her father (and
Maeve's!): the late, great druid Lovernios. Seeking to circumvent
disaster, Maeve travels back and forth from Iceni country to Mona, from
the heart of native resistance to a Roman fort on the western front,
steadfast in her conviction: "Love is as strong as death."
