Set in sixth-century Constantinople, The Bearkeeper's Daughter is another Bradshaw novel that deals with the complex societies of the late Hellenistic world. Again the milieu is multiracial and multicultural, giving it a decidedly modern flavor. The teeming city of Constantinople is a meeting place of East and West, of Arab, Persian, Slav, Armenian, Roman, and Herul. The society is one of surface harmony, but tensions lurk beneath a facade of prosperity and glamour. In this novel Bradshaw draws attention to the role of religion in politics, expressed by the split between the eastern and western orthodoxies of the powerful Christian church. This is also a society that practices slavery. The social hierarchy thus extends from the pinnacle of tyrannical power, represented by Emperor Justinian and his empress Theodora, to the depths of the slave who is bought and sold as property.

The complex role of women...