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NINO RICCI's best-selling Lives of the Saints (published in the United States as The Book of Saints) won the Governor General's Award for fiction, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the F. G. Bressani Prize. The New York Times Book Review hailed it as "an extraordinary story - brooding and ironic, suffused with yearning, tender and lucid and gritty . . . [The author has] perfect pitch and brilliant descriptive powers." This was the first book in a trilogy and was followed by In a Glass House - "beautifuly written and tireless in its pursuit of emotional truth" (Times Literary Supplement) - and Where She Has Gone, which was a finalist for the Giller Prize.

A stunning fictional biography, Testament presents the earthly life of Jesus from the perspectives of four fascinating figures. In powerful accounts colored by their own beliefs and desires, the following men and women tell the captivating story:

Yihuda of Qiryat (Judas Iscariot), a freedom fighter working for Rome’s overthrow who is drawn to the charismatic teacher; Miryam of Migdal (Mary Magdalene), a disciple who finds in Jesus' presence the intellectual stimulation that society has denied her; Miryam (Mary), the mother of Jesus, who has a complex relationship with her precocious son; Simon of Gergesa, a plainspoken shepherd who travels to Jerusalem and witnesses the last days of the Jewish preacher.

With exquisite detail, Nino Ricci offers a vivid and provocative portrait of the historical Jesus, an ordinary man living in a time of political turmoil and spiritual uncertainty.

TEST

The Los Angeles Times

Testament, by Canadian author Nino Ricci, introduces us to a different, more earthly Jesus. Following in the footsteps of the best historical-fiction writers, Ricci re-imagines the life of Jesus, steeping his narrative in highly detailed, well-researched background. By weaving together a plausible tale based on fact, he illuminates Jesus as a flesh-and-blood human with foibles and idiosyncrasies who lived his life in a specific time and place. In a way that the New Testament accounts, employing their hagiographic tone, cannot accomplish, Ricci ("The Book of Saints") immerses readers in the visceral details, making the familiar account blossom anew and the story of Jesus tangible. — Bernadette Murphy