Nocturnal Book Reviews

I have very mixed feelings about this book.

It took me two weeks to go through the first third of the book, and another couple of days to finish the other two thirds. I was tempted to DNF, but then it actually became entertaining.


So, it's good and it's bad at the same time, that's why it's so hard to decide what to write in this review.

Good parts: travelling through so many countries and archaeological aspects of the research, the sheer amount of the players in the field, the constant evolution of the goals in the plot. Zoe travels quite a lot through London - Paris - Berlin - Venice, Greece and Turkey. She's got a lot of people around her that she needs to deal with, and they are pretty interesting characters.

Bad parts: No clarity in the main plot line, which left me feeling confused through the whole book. Most of Zoe's decisions are mysteriously taken from her with people magically appearing at every step she was making to do things that needed to be done for her. First I was annoyed, then it just became ridiculous.

I couldn't get the feel of good and bad guys, they were vague and ambiguous. Someone you thought bad suddenly would turn around and help Zoe, and someone else will lose mental brownie points you gave them.

The ideas are certainly good, but it's the execution and the character depth that suffer in the end. I have a feeling that quality was sacrificed to quantity, but don't just take my opinion for it. I did see good reviews of this book, it just wasn't for me.