View from the Palace

Manaen of Antioch grew up inside the palace of Herod the Great, raised as a companion to the boy who would become Herod the Tetrarch. He witnessed the corruption, the cruelty, and the extravagance of power from the inside, and spent a lifetime searching for something truer than all of it.

A View From the Palace follows Manaen's extraordinary journey across the ancient world, from the courts of Rome to the streets of Jerusalem, as he watches history unfold around him. He is present for the rise and fall of kings, the beheading of John the Baptist, and ultimately the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a man whose life changes everything Manaen thought he knew.

Based on the single verse in Acts 13:1, Robbie Munn Bayler has imagined a rich and deeply human story of faith, friendship, loss, and transformation, a novel for anyone who has ever wondered what it looked like to witness the greatest story ever told from the inside.