I received this novel as an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
What intrigued me about this book was that it was a historical thriller that dealt with Catholic saints and resurrection. I attended a Catholic high school and I was always interested in learning about the stories of different saints and martyrs who were revered for their devotion and their selflessness. Getting the chance to read a story about a mysterious saint who may or may not be alive …. well, that is a book I just cannot resist.
Professor Clare Malley is a medievalist, who teaches at a Catholic university in New York City. Most of her work deals with secret orders, and saintly miracles. But nothing could have prepared her for the miracle she sees occurring right in front of her eyes. For how else can she explain why 16-year-old Jonas Crosswell did not die after getting shot by drug dealers? And who is it that saved him? As Clare begins to investigate deeper into this mystery, she finds herself getting involved with Sean, the troubled heir to a massive pharmaceutical company who has been missing for 20 years – right after he, too, was supposedly cured. What is it that connects these two random events? Is it really a miracle? Or is there something far more sinister at hand?
I don’t understand why the author gave the impression that this novel would be dealing with something mystical because there was really nothing about that at all in this story. Maybe declaring this is a spoiler, but I think it is necessary in this case, because I was sorely disappointed to find that I had been misled. This novel is about corruption, and drug abuse, and it somehow gets into biological experimentation. Oh, and there are some ghosts involved, too. Honestly, the author just threw everything that could be conceived into one story, with no clear reason why. Perhaps it was because I had the unedited copy, but I found it extremely hard to follow the events and the character voices in the story. There was just an abrupt shift where one minute I would be reading about something happening with one character, and then suddenly it would just take off with another character doing something completely unrelated. I’m still unsure how everything in this story ties in, because it was just so far-fetched, and it just didn’t make sense. My general feel for this novel was that everything was jumbled together with no clear, cohesive flow, and that made the story suffer. While I managed to finish this novel, it was definitely disappointing.
Happy reading ~
Vee Reads 