In a time of religious upheaval and civil war in a country where men of different faiths can never be brothers, three slaves must keep a date with destiny. Death, destruction and the persecution of an entire nation at the hands of the Roman army set the stage for "The Idumean Covenant: A Novel of the Fall of Jerusalem." Abraham's twin grandsons, Jacob and Esau, were bitter enemies. Jacob's descendants, the Judeans become God's chosen people and Esau's descendants, the Idumeans, become the people that God hated and despised.God's prophets tell the Judeans, Isaiah and Ezehiel, to rob and even kill Idumeans. Inexplicably, however, Titus Flavius Josephus relates in his Jewish Wars that the insurrectionists against Rome called upon the Idumeans for support in order to prevent the Judean sect of Sadducees from turning Jerusalem over to the Romans. Can it be that the revered historian had a secret agenda? The Idumean Covenant is a locomotive taking the intelligent reader on a historical adventure of cynical plots, unconventional alliances and impossible loves pitting the most powerful men of the Roman Empire against each other.
About the Author: Eugene Stovall was born and raised in Oakland, California where he received a catholic education. At the age of eighteen, he was invested into the Knights of Peter Claver, after having attended St. Joseph's College Seminary where he studied for the Catholic priesthood. Stovall graduated from Bishop O'Dowd High School and attended St. Mary's College, but left college to join the U.S. Air Force. In 1966, Stovall graduated magna cum laude from the University of California in 1969, after spending a year studying at the University of Lund in Sweden researching the Swedish Ombudsman. Stovall used this research to write his master's thesis at the University of California at Davis. Becoming a National Foundation Fellow in 1973, Stovall received his Ph.D in Political Theory from the Political Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Stovall worked for the California State Legislature as well as the University of California's Institute of Race & Community Relations before going into the corporate world where he worked for Pacific Bell for 18 years. At the same time Dr. Stovall has been an adjunct faculty member at USF, St. Mary's College, San Francisco State University and Merritt College. In his ten years at St. Mary's College, he taught such courses as Greek Thought, Roman, Christian & Medieval Thought & Renaissance, 17th & 18th Century Thought using the 'shared inquiry' methodology with 'critical thinking' outcomes. Eugene Stovall's previous novels include the 2007 IPPY Bronze Medal winner, Frank Yerby: A Victim's Guilt. For this first effort In May, 2006, Dr. Stovall hosted a Frank Yerby Symposium at the Oakland Museum. The Hayward South County NAACP honored Stovall for memorializing the great black novelist, Frank Yerby. Stovall's second novel is entitled, Blood & Brotherhood: A Novel of Love in a Time of Hate. A third novel, Cassandra's Curse, is being prepared for release in 2010.