The Eighth Veil — Ellis Kadison

This splendid novel, like Quo Vadis and Ben Hur, brings to life the colorful and corrupt world of imperial Rome and the dramatic feelings and events of Judea in the time of Christ. It is also the love story of a Jewish Zealot who becomes a Christian--Daniel bar Dineas--and a virginal princess who becomes one of the most infamous women in all history--Salome, whose erotic dance before her stepfather, King Herod, wins her evil mother the head of the prophet John the Baptist.

The two lovers meet and fall in love when Salome is 12 and Daniel is 17; he is working with his father, a metal-smith simultaneously spying, hoping to find a way to free John the Baptist from prison. But Salome is forced to accept the sexual ravages of Herod and his cronies, and Daniel is forced to flee. The young lovers will not meet again for 30 years. Then he, a member of the persecuted Christian sect, will be in Rome to aid the Christian leader Paul; and Salome, the wife of a Roman senator whom she despises, will be trapped in a life of wantonness and imperial decadence. There are many differences between them, but this time, they vow, they will not be parted again.

Rich in history, eroticism and passion, this novel is hard to put down--and impossible to forget.