The first pope could have been a woman. Why isn't Teresa lll or Catherine V waving at us from the Vatican window in St. Peter's Square? After all, Jesus made no bones about gender issues. And Mary Magdalene was certainly most fitting to be the first bishop of Rome. So what when wrong? As is often the case, the issue is the bending of truth. Eve and Mary: The Search for Lost Beauty and Sensuality is an exciting voyage of historical and cultural discovery that steps into the stream of familiar legends and myths as well as other unusual and surprising events, seeking, exploring and making sense of the stigmatization of sexual pleasure and the vanishing of beauty in the Early Middle Ages in Europe.