cover image The Galilean Secret

The Galilean Secret

Evan Drake Howard, . . Guideposts, $24.99 (442pp) ISBN 978-0-8249-4794-1

Since Dan Brown's bestselling The Da Vinci Code , readers have been fascinated with the mysterious relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Howard, a Rhode Island pastor, offers a fascinating and unique interpretation, setting out a path to realizing the feminine and masculine divine within every soul. The story, essentially a reworking of Howard's 2007 self-published novel The Lost Epistle of Jesus , switches back and forth between two plots, one in the present day and the other in first-century Jerusalem. Karim, a young Palestinian, tries to escape his jihadist father, leader of the Palestinian Patriotic Alliance, and stumbles upon a buried relic. His discovery takes him on a high-stakes adventure to bring the relic's contents to the world. Simultaneously, we read of Judith, a young Jew of the ancient world, who becomes involved with anti-Roman zealots, the radical rabbi Jesus, and his companion Mary Magdalene. Both stories progress toward the same conclusion—a search for Jesus' deepest and as yet unrealized truth that will bring peace and love to all who can truly understand its worth. (May)