Sue Monk Kidd’s The Book of Longings (2020) presents a beautiful, and at times raw, look at the life of women in first century Israel and Egypt. Ana, from whose first-person perspective the story unfolds, is the daughter of the local regent’s head scribe. She comes of age in a world of strict social and class roles, rigid along gender lines, in Sepphoris of Galilee in the early years of Common Era.