The year is 337 AD; the place is the city formerly known as Byzantium and which is now popularly known as Constantinople, or New Rome, the new capital of the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine has died, leaving the empire divided between his three sons, the regents: Constantine the Younger, Constantius, and Constans. Before his death, Constantine converted to Christianity, making the new religion legal throughout the empire. The followers of Christos, free to practice their religion for the first time in the history of the Empire, made converts like wildfire, and began to take over the pagan temples--either by converting all but the most devoted priests, or by the sword.

The partrician class, knowing a politic move when they saw one, all publicly converted to Christianity, though there were more than a few who held secret pagan beliefs. But all adopted the customs of the Christians, keeping the Sabbath. The world is shifting, and though Constantine publicly declared that all may worship as they like, Christianity has moved from being barely tolerated to being the preferred religion of the empire.

Constantinople has an uneasy truce with the Sassanids who live to the east and have since long before the Romans had conquered this land. There are a few Sassanids living in the city, but they are regarded with suspicion; their ways are strange to those who considered themselves citizens of the Roman Empire, and their religion is clearly heretical.

The three regents are fighting amongst themselves, continuing the great Roman tradition of civil war. Constantine's dream of leaving the empire that he had reunited whole seems more and more remote every day.

Livia Neria's husband, a senator and advisor to the regent Constantius, has just been assassinated, leaving her a wealthy--and young--widow. Her world shattered by the loss of her beloved husband, she is attempting to put the pieces of her life back together. To do this, she must assemble the pieces of a most daunting puzzle. Her husband was involved in things she never knew about, had a past that she never guessed at, and was working towards a goal that only he knew about.

The search will lead her into deadly places, and she will find that to defeat her enemies, she may have to become them...

Now available as a print book from lulu.com! Edited and revised and exceptionally shiny, this is Every Sacred Thing as a book you can read in the bathtub!