Review - The Orpheus Descent by Tom Harper

Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Publication date: 01 July 2013
ISBN: 9781444731354

Today, twelve golden tablets sit in museums around the world, each created by unknown hands and buried in ancient times, and each providing the dead with the route to the afterlife. Archaeologist Lily Barnes, working on a dig in southern Italy, has just found another. But this tablet names the location to the mouth of hell itself.

And then Lily vanishes. Has she walked out on her job, her marriage, and her life -- or has something more sinister happened? Her husband, Jonah, is desperate to find her. But no one can help him: not the police and not the secretive foundation that sponsored her dig. All Jonah has is belief, and a determination to do whatever it takes to get Lily back.

But like Plato before him, Jonah will discover the journey ahead is mysterious and dark and fraught with danger. And not everyone who travels to the hidden place where Lily has gone can return.

This was a great story AND I learned some stuff. I haven't read anything else by this author and I wasn't really sure what to expect with this, I had just heard that it was an ancient mystery thriller type story and had a Dan Brown feel to it so I was looking forward to it. I'll admit I wasn't immediately hooked and I was feeling a bit lukewarm towards it until I got three or four chapters in but from then on I could hardly put it down.

It's a dual timeline story and a lot of the time it felt like I was reading two separate tales but they were both great tales so it was win/win. One aspect I was a bit worried about was that one storyline was told from the point of view of Plato, and his part of the tale is filled with Greek God's and philosophers and in truth I thought a lot of it might go over my head as the closest I've come to anything remotely like that was the time I watched Disney's Hercules... My fears were unfounded though, Plato and his contemporaries were a joy to read about. Interesting, puzzling, fascinating...I loved all of it. When we first meet Plato he is setting off from Greece by ship to meet his friend in Italy who has asked him to bring funding for a special book he has found but can't afford. The rendezvous hits a setback from the very start and Plato's task is to try and find his friend and solve the mystery surrounding the book he wanted to buy.

Plato's modern counterpart in alternating chapters is Jonah, a band member who has recently come off tour and is keen to reunite with his archaeologist wife who he hasn't seen for the 6 weeks he's been off touring Europe. Like Plato his meeting doesn't go smoothly when his wife goes missing and as he tries to piece together the mystery that surrounds her disappearance we see the parallel's to Plato's story start to unfold.

The two stories are set more than 2000 years apart but by alternating chapters we see how closely they are intertwined and riddles posed in Jonah's chapters were usually answered in Plato's chapters and vice versa. It's very well done.

The only thing I wasn't keen on was the ending. The book held my interest right up to the conclusion but I found the ending unsatisfying. It just seemed a bit rushed and I just wasn't as enamored with it as I was the rest of the story.

All in all a great story though and I plan to read all the other author's works too.

Review - The Secrets Women Keep by Fanny Blake

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Orion
Publication date: 03 July 2013
ISBN13: 9781409128472

First Line - "The dark outline of hte doorway framed a section of the sun-drenched garden beyond, the brilliance of the outdoor colours such a contrast to the house's shady interior.

Rose waits for her family to arrive at their villa in Tuscany when a casual glance at her husband's phone tips her world upside down. The text reads simply: 'Miss you. Love you. Come back soon.'

Daniel has always been popular with women, she knows that. But until this moment she has had no cause for worry. Has something shifted within their marriage without her realising?

As the family gathers for the summer break, Rose's faith in Daniel is shaken. How well does she really know him? She fears that, after decades of marriage and children, the man who lies beside her at night is lying in other ways too. Then events take a tragic turn."

This is a good book. It's just not a good book for me.

After a really slow start it just meandered along to the end and never really engaged me or captured my interest. I found it really hard to keep going with this one. I'm still not sure why it's called 'The Secret's Women Keep' it would have made more sense if it was 'The Secret's HUSBAND'S keep'. That was what the whole story revolved around, Rose's husband's secret. I didn't really have any interest in her husband's secret though, to be honest. If it was happening to anyone other than Rose I might have been more drawn in but as it is I just didn't really care much about her problems. I couldn't really relate to Rose and her actions and re-actions just got on my nerves for most of the time.

It's a story of flawed characters, dealing with situations that could probably all be sorted out in a few chapters if they'd just talk to each other. Get it out in the open, deal with it and move on. All of them seem to have 'issues' of one description or another and to be frank a lot of it was just tedious and petty.

I think it will appeal to those looking for a family drama set in a sunny climate but I didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting to.