Star of Destiny

Flavius Septimus, the commander of the Sepphoris garrison in Galilee, harbors a dark secret that casts a shadow over the lives of his son, Linus Flavian, and Maria of Magdala. In these novels, Linus, Maria, and Joshua, the Biblical Jesus, are born under a mysterious star in a world steeped in superstition and intrigue. As the Jewish Temple hierarchy, the Herodian dynasty, and the Romans vie for power in tumultuous first-century Judea, their adolescent lives unfold, intertwined with personal destinies shaped by the beliefs surrounding their births under that enigmatic star.“In providing historical, economic, and religious details, Peter Longley builds a bridge between spiritual divinity and traditional Christianity. Finally, it’s a relief to find a theologian that makes sense of the Bible and its many translations!”– Jeanette Parker, USA“Longley blends a fantastic mixture of historical and fictional figures and events to narrate the early lives of Joshua, (also known as Jesus of Nazareth,) Maria, (also known as Mary Magdalene,) and Linus Flavius, (the fictitious son of a high-ranking Roman official.) Using simple, effective prose, Longley tells an engaging tale that offers plausible explanations of those well-known stories of the miraculous, such as the virgin birth and the turning of water into wine. Longley tells an intriguing story in a setting that is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.”– Sacramento and San Francisco Book Reviews, USA“Longley’s feeling for the Roman and Jewish point of view is superb.”– Dorothy Thompson, Scotland“I very much enjoy your interpretation of the life of Jesus and feel it is much more logical than the accepted version. I have always had a fascination with Mary Magdalene and her life as well. I found this book to be very interesting. Nothing I have read on Mary Magdalene has had the same sort of story line including that of her mother.”– Cheryl Huffman, USA

Peter Longley was brought up in southeast England and educated at Tonbridge School in the 1950s before reading theology at Cambridge. In 1965, he spent the summer as a kibbutznik in Israel. From 1967–1977, he was the estate manager of Tullamaine Castle in Ireland, which was then American-owned, and it took him to Georgia, USA, where in 1978 he went to sea as a ship’s artist. Later, he became a cruise director with Royal Viking Line, and in 1989, he joined Cunard as the cruise director of Queen Elizabeth 2, where he met his Bavarian-born German wife. Cruise ships took him all over the world in the 1980s and 1990s until he retired and became the horticultural interpreter of the Springfeld Botanical Garden in Missouri, USA. He started writing novels in 1978, and he returned to England in 2017.