Justine Saracen Collection (FF)

Sarah, Son of God

What happens when who we love forces us to change our view of who we are?

Against her better judgment, Professor Joanna Valois takes on sexually undefinable Sara Falier as her assistant on a trip to Venice. The object of their research is a sixteenth century heretical book and the truth about the woman condemned to death for printing it. The book, a translation of an ancient codex, not only shattered the lives of nearly everyone who touched it, but 400 years later, could still bring half the world to its knees.

Like nesting dolls, this story within a story within a story raises the question as to whether gender-breaking has not only challenged the boundaries of love and sexual desire, but altered the course of history.

Sistine Heresy

Eros, art, and gorgeous blasphemy...

Adrianna Borgia, survivor of the Borgia court, presents Michelangelo with the greatest temptations of his life while struggling herself with soul-threatening desires and heresies. Her growing passion for the painter Raphaela Bramante mirrors the sculptor's damnable interest in a castrato in the Sistine choir and in the ideas of secular humanism. Claimed as the epitome of Christian inspiration, Michelangelo's ceiling is revealed as a coup of Eros upon religion, a gorgeous blasphemy and a paean to forbidden love in the very heart of the Church.

Mephisto Aria

Is the history of a dangerous love affair destined to be repeated?

At the height of her career, opera singer Katherina Marow is brought crashing down by her father's suicide. Among his effects, she finds his wartime journal and reads the heart-wrenching entries of a soldier in Russia and in war-torn Berlin. She learns the crimes and secrets her father harbored, but cannot condemn him, for while she discovers his demons, she is facing her own. The stage-world she lives in draws her into a lawless ecstatic realm, and she is tempted, as he was, by forces which could destroy her. Has she too made a devil's pact? And if so, will she pay for it, as her father did, with her life?

The 100th Generation

Ancient curses, modern day villains, and a most intriguing woman who keeps appearing when least expected and then...disappearing.
Archeologist Valerie Foret has spent a year searching for a tomb in the Egyptian desert--a labor broken only by high risk trysts with a powerful man's wife. When she finally makes the discovery of a lifetime, she is set upon by jealous rivals and religious fanatics. Worse, she is drawn into the depths of the desert by forces that offer knowledge of vast mysteries and at the same time threaten to destroy everything she knows. For what she's found is a glimpse into the hereafter, and it's nothing like it's supposed to be.

Vulture's Kiss

On the eve of the release of Valerie Foret's great chronicle, Valerie learns that hers is not the 100th generation of the prophecy at all. In grappling with a mysterious and lethal opponent, Valerie witnesses the horrors of the first Crusade in which her ancestors, both innocent and malevolent, have carried out a drama identical to her own. The weapon that succeeded then and now threatens once again is the terrible power of faith. Will the outcome be the same? In the course of fleeing the forces of violent fundamentalism, Valerie, a westerner, and Najya Khoury, an Arab-Israeli, fall in love and find out just how dangerous it is to challenge accepted 'truth.'

Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

Twelve years of terror end with a world in flames. Behind filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s stirring footage of a million joyous patriots, the horror of Nazi Germany unfolds. It engulfs Katja Sommer, a “good German” who discovers honor in treason; Frederica Brandt, active in the highest circles of power; Rudi Lamm, homosexual camp survivor and forced SS killer; and Peter Arnhelm, a half- Jewish terrorist. Under the scrutiny of the familiar monsters of the Third Reich, these four struggle for life, decency, and each other. Love does not conquer all, but it’s better than going to hell alone.