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A review by tricky
The Book Of Love by Kathleen McGowan
1.0
This the second book in the series penned by Kathleen McGowan in which Maureen Paschal attempts to unravel a religious mystery. I had not read the first book but you need not worry as the author for the first 100 pages or gives you a recap of what has occurred before. In a nutshell Maureen discovers that Mary and Jesus were actually married and had children.
In the present day, Maureen is promoting her fictional novel that reveals the relationship between Jesus and Mary (she has made a promise to the Vatican not to reveal the actual facts) when she receives a scroll that hints at new mystery for her to resolve. Her partners from the first book also receive a scroll and thus they are all brought together for a new adventure.
The ideas and theories McGowan present are interesting and hold a great deal of promise, however, the execution of the novel falls short. There were slabs of text that repeated itself, we were told rather than shown what was happening and I am not sure the alternate viewpoints worked.
When McGowan is telling the story of Matilda the novel works, to an extent. In that it interesting and holds your attention. You then have the Libro Rossi that is used to provide further information but at times I wondered why I needed to know all this. When we switch back to Maureen or one of her team things just seem to drag a bit as I found the characters did a lot of internalising. There seemed to be an over reliance on divine intervention to move the story along, rather than the characters solving or making a decision.
I have no issues reading a book that presents an alternative religious view to the mainstream. McGowan has created an interesting premise but for me the novel just did not deliver.
In the present day, Maureen is promoting her fictional novel that reveals the relationship between Jesus and Mary (she has made a promise to the Vatican not to reveal the actual facts) when she receives a scroll that hints at new mystery for her to resolve. Her partners from the first book also receive a scroll and thus they are all brought together for a new adventure.
The ideas and theories McGowan present are interesting and hold a great deal of promise, however, the execution of the novel falls short. There were slabs of text that repeated itself, we were told rather than shown what was happening and I am not sure the alternate viewpoints worked.
When McGowan is telling the story of Matilda the novel works, to an extent. In that it interesting and holds your attention. You then have the Libro Rossi that is used to provide further information but at times I wondered why I needed to know all this. When we switch back to Maureen or one of her team things just seem to drag a bit as I found the characters did a lot of internalising. There seemed to be an over reliance on divine intervention to move the story along, rather than the characters solving or making a decision.
I have no issues reading a book that presents an alternative religious view to the mainstream. McGowan has created an interesting premise but for me the novel just did not deliver.