Anachronistic behavior

Though the story is interesting and the characters have a great deal of depth, one serious flaw in characterization made the latter half of this book difficult to read: The main female character is portrayed as a Christian, yet she falls into bed with the main male character without much provocation. That seemed a very modern sort of thing to throw into a story set in the first century. Not only that, but the main male character was NOT a Christian, yet that seemed to cause the heroine no sort of ideological trouble. Part of what the Roman government did not like about first century Christians is that they were different from everyone else. It was dangerous to be a Christian at that time, but our heroine clearly tells a Roman magistrate that she believes Jesus died and rose again the third day, and he barely registers her statement in the dialog. The writing is generally fine, but this plot element should have fired much more conflict than it did. (See Francine Rivers' excellent Mark of the Lion trilogy for the level of internal conflict that should be felt when a Christian woman is attracted to a non-Christian Roman officer as well as a more believable resolution.) I was enjoying the story until the explicit sex, but that threw me out of the time period. This story has some very dark elements of child murder and political conspiracy and with the major mis-characterization of Christians, I can't recommend it if you like realistic period works. If none of that bothers you, the writing is fine, and the story is interesting.

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