Joni Okun can still remember her first effort at writing historical fiction. “I was in third grade,” she recalls. “I researched going west in a covered wagon. I made little index cards. I wrote a story incorporating the research.” Okun, who jokes that she’s a “recovering lawyer,” sees her new writing career as a much better fit. Now she’s a member of the Historical Novel Society and writing full time in Orlando, Florida, where she lives with her husband. “It feels like this is what I was born to do,” she says.

Like Okun’s covered-wagon story, her new novel, To Hold the Throne, came about because of a class she took: architecture of the Holy Land, from Great Courses, taught by Jodi Magness, a professor of Early Judaism at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. According to Okun, professor Magness told the whole story of the Maccabees—the rulers of ancient Judea—and of Mariamne, the wife of King Herod. Okun thought it was an enthralling story, one that had “all the elements of a great book.”

At the beginning of Okun’s novel, Mariamne’s grandfather announces unfortunate news: He has arranged for her to marry Herod, the governor of Galilee and eventual king of Judea. Mariamne is far from thrilled. She sees Herod as ruthless and power hungry and feels no attraction or affection toward him. Herod, impressed by Mariamne’s beauty, thinks only of consummation.

A novel of political ascent and doomed marriage, To Hold the Throne also captures the precarious position of women in ancient society, Mariamne included. In its review, Kirkus calls the book “a rare combination of historical scrupulousness and fictional artistry,” in which “the heart of the tale…is Mariamne’s psychological depth.” At crucial times, Okun delves into the intimate workings of Mariamne’s mind. Here, on the occasion of her son’s birth, Mariamne imagines his future:

I looked into my son’s eyes, wide-open and fixed on mine. I vowed to him I would be a good mother, unlike my own, who had not concerned herself with her young children. When she deigned to speak to us, she took a sharp, dismissive tone. I asked God to help me be a steady, loving mother of kings. Was it not every royal mother’s dream to see her son wearing the crown of his nation? The baby opened his tiny mouth and yawned.

To Hold the Throne’s chapters toggle between Mariamne’s perspective and Herod’s. For Mariamne’s chapters, Okun uses a first-person voice to access her interior thoughts and feelings. “I was thinking of [writing] it simply from Mariamne’s point of view. But a woman couldn’t do much in those days,” says Okun. “I wanted to have action, too. She was very unusual for her time yet still so limited in what society allowed her to do.” By putting Mariamne and Herod on equal footing, Okun repositions the historical record. “I hope to shed light on a woman essentially written out of history,” she says.

Because of Herod’s mobility, Okun confesses that his chapters were fun to write. Still, she wanted to keep a little distance from a character who, for all his historical achievements, was a monster. “Herod was an architectural visionary who changed the skyline of Jerusalem,” says Okun. “Yet he was [a] ruthless and paranoid ruler.” Okun decided to use a close third-person voice to write from his perspective. She makes him, if not likable, at least somewhat sympathetic. “I was trying to get into his skull,” she says, “to see things from his perspective—and to convey his increasing mental illness.”

Though Okun seamlessly weaves historical background with narrative, researching the novel was an arduous process. She paid many visits to the Olin Library at Rollins College in Orlando. “I researched what people ate, how they lived, what kinds of structures they lived in, the social setup of their society,” she says. Okun relied on primary sources—in particular, the writings of Josephus, a Jewish historian and captive of Rome who wrote histories of the Jews. Her initial research was the most time-consuming; once she began writing, she could see which holes she had to fill in—and more painfully, which fascinating historical details didn’t have a proper place in the novel.

Okun says she’s not like most writers in the sense that she usually loves a first draft. “It’s invigorating, it’s exciting,” she says. “It’s the editing—the endless revising—that feels tedious.” Not that she doesn’t see the purpose of all those drafts. To Hold the Throne went through a long and exhausting process of revision. “It’s kind of a challenge to know when you’re finished. When is it really ready?” says Okun. “The end product bears very little resemblance to the first draft.”

Okun has long been a lover of historical fiction, but she hesitates to prescribe rules for it. “I think different authors have different standards,” she says. “I try to stay as close as I can to historical events.” Despite her fondness for the genre, she doesn’t really see it as being that different from others. “It’s the same as any other fiction writing in that you have to get into [the characters’] heads,” she says. “It’s a special challenge because they’re so distant, but there are universal human truths that apply.”

When discussing her next project, the author doesn’t want to give too much away. For now, she’s willing to reveal that To Hold the Throne is the first book in a series on Herod. “The next one will be about the middle years, his adult children, his interactions with Augustus, Rome, and the politics of it all.” She won’t say much more beyond that; she doesn’t want to spoil it. Readers who can’t wait might have to brush up on their ancient history.

Walker Rutter-Bowman is a writer and teacher living in Washington, D.C.