Long after the death of Christ, Mary Magdalene is married to a silk merchant, Leonidas, a lover of boys and a Christian convert. Although not conventionally happily married, she lives a quiet and harmonious life in Antioch - until, one day, the apostle Peter comes to the market square to preach and she slips into the crowd to hear what he has to say. She is not impressed, and wants to forget that Jesus chose death, not life with her. But she has reckoned without the apostles who persuade her to write down everything she can remember for, thanks to her upbringing, she is literate in both her own language and Greek. Mary starts with her Jewish childhood and her sense of 'otherness' (she is fair haired and blue eyed while her brothers and sisters were dark), and the terrible slaughter of her family by the Romans which she witnesses. Running for her life, she is rescued by Leonidas, at this point a Roman soldier, who leaves her in a 'house of pleasure' where she grows into a beautiful woman. Then she meets and falls deeply in love with a young man from Nazareth and her life changes. She follows him as he spreads God's word, healing the sick, the lame and the blind, and preaching love and equality among men and women. And she is with him too on that last dreadful day at Golgotha when she is left to face a bleak and terrible future on her own. Marianne Fredriksson masterfully breathes new life into the figure of Mary Magdalene in this novel of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, seen through the eyes of the woman who loved him most.