Following a successful career in academia and numerous scholarly publications, Joan Driscoll Lynch, a 1957 graduate of the Lynch School of Education and professor emerita at Villanova University, has directed her pen toward a new form. Her first novel, Women of the Passion, offers readers an experience of the time after the death of Christ from the point of view of his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and the other women who walked with him, bringing to life what may have been their thoughts, fears, and activities at that turbulent time. Inspired by Scripture and incorporating historical research, the book has been called a ‘religious thriller’ filled with ‘suspense, intrigue, and fascinating details of conditions in Jerusalem in the first century.’ Lynch and her husband, Thomas, a 1958 alumnus of the College of Arts and Sciences, reside in Pennsylvania.