Book excerpt: This is the groundbreaking novel that fills in so many puzzling passages and mysteries woven into the familiar scriptural stories of the Bible. Using the near- lost gospels of the earliest Judeo-Christian mystics recovered recent times, Peter Canova reconstructs Western spiritual history in a spellbinding novel of fall, transcendence, and redemption. Mary Magdalene's story in not just about the lost feminine voice of the early Church-her story is our story, the universal saga of humanity's origin, destiny, and purpose. It is the story of an explosive divine knowledge being silenced by opposing powers to prevent a shocking truth from transforming mankind with a new paradigm for existence. Magdalene escapes slavery and forced prostitution to become the primary disciple of Jesus and bear the secret, radical knowledge he taught to an elect few. Set against the clash of opposing empires and a backdrop of murder, espionage, and betrayal, Magdalene is pursued by a Roman assassin as she embarks on an odyssey across the ancient world. She seeks the key that will make her worthy to reveal the true message of the martyred Jesus before she too is silenced and her native Judea is destroyed in a rain of fire and blood.