Fran Lewis' in depth review of The Messiah Matrix

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

A matrix is defined as “ A situation or surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained.” Within the pages of this intricate novel we learn about the origins of situations in the past the have reflected themselves in the present as the author takes us back in time to 70A.D. when Flavius Josephus the Historian decided to add 100 words that would change the course of history and the perspective on the existence of one man who was and still is crucial to the Church and Christianity, Christ. Did he really exist? Why is that so many scholars, writers never make mention to actually seeing Jesus in person. Those investigating this issue found one physical reference in a document titled: Testimonium Flavianum added to an edition of his book: Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, where he makes mention of his existence. Antiquities 18.3.3. “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.”

According to history Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to his death. Some who became his disciples did not abandon him. Some reported that he appeared three days after he was crucified and he was the Messiah.  But, our novel begins with the murder of a Monsignor authorized we are told by the Holy Mother Church as related by his killer who seeks redemption from Father Ryan and absolution for his sins. But, no sooner does the young Priest begin speaking to him in the Confessional, this man runs out of the church and finds himself the next victim. Why was he sent? Why would the Holy Mother Church order the death of this great man and what do the final words of the killer mean?

Diving in the ancient Harbor in Israel, Emily, an archeologist and her team are diving below the surface and encounter some rough waters. Hidden below the surface in a boat that has been there for many years is a treasure that will change the course of many lives and endanger those that found it. Two of her student divers remain below the surface during this dangerous storm causing Emily to have to find out their fate. Diving, searching and finally learning the reason why their rise to the surface was delayed she decides to complete what they started. Beneath and stuck in a krater was a gold coin. But, not just any gold coin one that was enveloped in bronze by its first owner who left it there thinking he might return for it at a later date but never did. “The Augustan Aureus: never released, was sitting in the palm of her hands.” The author vividly describes the coin: the figure portrayed is wearing a crown that appears to look like thorns. His face has a beard and the thorns look like a halo of spikes differing from the coin depicted on the cover of this book. Within the coin the creator inscribed: Chi and Rho, Greek Letters. The discussion was exciting and heated between Emily and her two students as the history behind the coin is revealed, their excitement palpable and the need to protect the coin noted. Meeting a man named Luke who Emily feels might provide more answers and perhaps funding for her team to continue their research in this field.

Father Ryan relates his meeting with our late Monsignor and the fact he too was in search of answers regarding Christ and his existence. Throughout Chapter 10 he relates what he learned about the man, the many scholars who published documents back then but never mentioned seeing Jesus in person and determining how to handle the fact that the killer, an Albanian man died in his arms and whether he should report it. The chapter relates information about Herod, the slaughter of male infants and the rumor of a royal birth. It continues with his meetings with the Monsignor, his lifestyle and wondering what he might have found in the Sibyl’s cave that got him killed.

Three separate plots: two murders, a coin that could change it all and a Priest that wants to find the connection between the death of the clergyman and the secret he might have buried with him. The Messiah Matrix will hopefully answer this question, leave readers asking more of their own and hopefully enlighten everyone about the research and the history related to Jesus and his existence.

Getting to understand Father Ryan we learn just what a threat he seems to be to the Vatican when summoned to the office of the Procurator General of the Society of Jesus and we hear his tone, his threats to Ryan and the end result in being attacked, entombed when looking at the sarcophagus of St. Paul and then bumping into Emily and finding out it is the Bishop and many attached to the Jesuits that are involved. Followed, shot at, attacked and learning the name of the bishop behind it all is not even the tip of the iceberg for these two when they team up to find out what caused someone kill Oscar Isaac their beloved Monsignor. The book is replete in history and the Monsignor found a link between Jesus and Augustus, which is explained in detail. Next, the cameo of the Emperor Augustus with a crown and holding the royal Roman Scepter carved they think during the time Christ was depicted on the center of the holy cross. This cameo was said to mean that the emperor was the “earthly representative of the almighty power of God.” He was also hoping to find the coin that Emily recovered and he thought his research important for the “origins of Christianity,” dangerous to the church and the Vatican. Finding the coin that was so valuable and the events that followed alerted Ryan to why he had to fear Pimental the Procurator. But, there is much more as the man who cleaned the coin, translated the words for the one person she thought she could trust but not only stole it from her but intended to capitalize on it, realized that on the coin in Greek were the words: God and son of god embossed across from the name: Jasius Augustus.

As you read this novel many different viewpoints come to light regarding Jesus as the Son of God and the Roman Emperor Augustus thought to be the real Son of God according to the Monsignor’s research. If this is true and he is said to be  son of god then the Christian Savior should be considered even more a Son of God which explains the tension that mounts within this novel between the Christian church, the Jesuits and the conflict that Father Ryan and Emily face as they come in contact with those that are behind the events that almost took their lives and did take the lives of three others. The Antiquities of the Jews and the crown that was worn by Apollo and the evidence found in the cave and presented to them will give every reader pause for thought, reason to do the research into what is presented themselves and make your own final decision. The cult of Augustus was “reinstated by Constantine,” and revived in the present. In other words Augustus had “designated a dozen of his pontiffs as August ales, to spread the rubrics of his cult throughout the empire.” In reality what Emily and the Monsignor uncovered is from what is depicted on her coin: the bearded image of Augustus wearing the Crown of Thorns- standing for the golden spiked one worn by Apollo. In reality when they asses what they have found, rendered all of the information in the files found in the catacombs and more the end result is that Isaac surmised that : Jesus was Augustus and Ryan has been asked to continue on with his work called the Messiah Matrix.

Was Jesus a real person? From the research presented within this novel the author relates that Augustus founded Christianity. The story created by Pimental and the Bishop would change the course of history. Stating that the imperial cult of Augustus Caesar was Christianity in itself. As we hear Pimental and Emily speak and the research of the Monsignor revealed we learn what others believe to be the truth: that Jesus Christ was “ simply the imperial cult name for the deified Caesar Augustus and the Church Fathers would later spin the manufactured mythology to create a literal biblical Jesus.” When the truth as they tell it unfolds the answers reflect that a mythology emerged into religious power and housed itself with the guardians and those who related the what they thought the real version of religion. Temptations rise, lives are placed in danger as Emily and Ryan face the challenge of their lives but first they have to escape what has been planned for them by those that appear to want them to submit to their will. A final scene will make readers hold their breath as Emily and Ryan are sent head first into a boiling underground river and hope to emerge unscathed.

Characters that are quite interesting and a storyline you will have decide for yourself whether you believe or not. As you read the final chapters and hear the voices from the past of the Emperors, Virgil as he is honored and allowed to sit with the Emperor. What is truth and what did they decide to recreate and change you will have to read and hear the voices of Virgil, Augustus and those in attendance to find out. Creating a cult, which would unify the people of the empire and bring peace. A document or book that would relate the facts and events the way they had conceived them making one man the true God in the eyes of the people. When Ryan and Emily present their findings and you read the last chapter and the chart they created of the events from start to finish, you the reader will decide: Was the real Jesus the one born in a manger or was Jesus: Jesus Augustus? You decide after reading this outstanding novel whose research and an ending that will bring it all full circle.

Fran Lewis: reviewer

Kenneth Atchity's Suspense Thriller The Messiah Matrix FREE October 16 - October 20!

To what lengths would the Vatican go to suppress the secret origins of its power? ⁠

⁠

A renowned priest is killed in Rome. A Roman coin is recovered from a wreck off the coast of ancient Judea. ⁠

⁠

It’s up to a young American Jesuit priest and a vivacious, brilliant, female archaeologist to connect these seemingly disparate events and unravel the greatest mystery of all. ⁠

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Ken Atchity Quote...

“If you have a dream, you have a responsibility to yourself and to us to make it come true. That’s the most important thing in your life. Don’t let anything stand in its way.”

― Kenneth John Atchity, The Messiah Matrix

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Ken Atchity Quotes...

“If you have a dream, you have a responsibility to yourself and to us to make it come true. That’s the most important thing in your life. Don’t let anything stand in its way.”

― Kenneth John Atchity, The Messiah Matrix

The Messiah Matrix Translated into Spanish!

Publisher's Weekly BookLife Review of The Messiah Matrix

A riveting novel grounded in theological academia featuring an exciting narrative that leaves fiction fans and history buffs alike interested in delving into the factual basis for the book.

Atchity’s plot is fast-moving and full of mysterious twists and turns that will keep readers on their toes throughout this fascinating novel. The prose often flows beautifully, with meticulous descriptions of settings, characters, and adventures. The various storylines intersect at the most crucial moments, and the exciting dialogue and sense of dark humor conveyed certainly intensify these scenes.

Though The Messiah Matrix brings to light many fresh theological and historical possibilities, the subplots of the novel bring to mind the popularized work of Dan Brown. The storyline of deception, questioning, and even murder within the Church is not a new one, but the elements of archaeological discovery and alternate past timelines shine a fresh new light on the genre of historical fiction. The main and supporting characters are described in thorough detail: their aspirations, their fears, their romantic and emotional turmoil.

Kenneth Atchity's The Messiah Matrix - Runner up at The London Book Festival!

The Messiah Matrix Review

Kenneth Atchity's The Messiah Matrix is one of those fascinating books—a rara avis--that works on many levels including those that, ironically, the writer may not have been aware of in the beginning. The story of the discovery that the historical Jesus was really the Roman Emperor Augustus (neé Octavian), a secret kept under wraps by the Society of Jesus acting, as many Jesuits do, in the best bad manners of 19th-century "novels of sensation," The Messiah Matrix is the latest in a stream of fiction popularized by The Da Vinci Code though having a pedigree among a number of so-called heretical novels, previously having garnering fanfare in Irving Wallace's 1972 novel, The Word.

What separates Atchity's book from the tiresome vulgate of the roman historique is the firmness of Atchity's unadorned style, a style seemingly embedded in Atchity's erudition as a Classicist. (If ever one wanted to study good English prose written by someone well-versed in highly inflected languages such as Attic Greek or Classical Latin, without having to grapple with Chase and Phillips' Introduction to Greek or Gildersleeve's daunting grammar tome, then Atchity is your meat.) Also, even though Dr. Atchity's bona fides as a well-traveled academician are beyond me, I can certainly appreciate a fellow who apparently knows his way around Rome when writing about Rome. (I imagine Atchity could blindly find his way from the Mausoleum of Augustus on the east bank of the Tiber River to the Temple of Jupiter near where the Via Flaminia pierces the center of The Eternal City.)

With plucky heroes such as devout archaeologist Emily Scelba and quavering priest Father Ryan, both desperately fighting the forces of darkness (and trying to stay one step ahead of a Holy See that would preserve the myth of our well-known Χριστος as well as Jesuits hell-bent—literally—on bringing on the advent of the Deified Augustus as the true Christ—The Messiah Matrix lives up to its mission, providing thrills couched in provocative questions.

Considering the already sturdy tumulus of propaganda built up around the too sordidly human Octavian, who, in 42 B.C. became divi filius—"Son of God," we should not decry a few more harmless pieces of learned public relations. If Augustus and Livia had no biological children, they were blessed by a million minions of spin. The hype began with the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, probably composed in A.D. 13-76, begun a year before the death of the man significantly known as Sebastos (Reverend) but also as Imperator (General). This sort of conflation of Messiah and Master-of-Arms is a delightful hagiographic touch sure to please revolutionaries, apostates, and wise novelists looking to expand a genre designed to thrill and excite with liberal dashes of carnality and intellectualism. (If Kissinger was right about power being the ultimate aphrodisiac, then what better Viagra than a peek into the Mysteries, whether Eleusinian, Gnostic, or otherwise?)

Unlike many conventional thrillers, and more like the priapic Old Comedy of the Greeks, The Messiah Matrix seems less a plotted thing than a progression of heterogeneous episodes. The book deftly combines mythical patterns of threat, capture, escape, and pursuit—usually against terrible odds for success and under circumstances of hideous death. This is the formula of Edgar Rice Burroughs, epigone himself of many purple patches of narrative. The formula in The Messiah Matrix inheres with religious hysteria and a baroque melodrama that would have made Matthew "Monk" Lewis salivate. The book accelerates from the discovery of an aureus whose coin face shows a thorn-crowned Augustus to a series of Perilous Pauline chases through an underworld that is both heady and prosaic as the novel hits all the storytelling points required by a heroic descent in, and daring extrication from, chthonic imprisonment. (Here Atchity's bracingly correct prose enmeshes every subterranean action and texture in phrasing precisely capturing the sights, sounds, and smells of a marathon race out of Acheron.)

Deep characterization, stunning surprises, and piquant variations are not what The Messiah Matrix is about—on the seemingly intended surface, that is. Yet, a deeper reading of the book strangely teases and tantalizes. The story releases intermittent billows of ironic incense, redolent of what author Atchity may have been satirically intending all along. For example, not just another Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Emily is, perhaps, an ironical avatar of Dan Brown's insipid "sacred feminine," glittering with the aegis of Athena (though, in the modern vein, hardly maintaining the chastity of an Artemis). Neither is the ineluctably defrocked young priest Father Ryan able to surprise and astonish by any veer away from a bathetic plunge into Emily's arms. (A last minute restoration of Ryan's Vow of Celibacy would have been refreshing, but, significantly, out of the book's intriguing ironies and sometimes caustic satire, an example of which is the terms of the Emily/Priest love affair. The couple's passions are relayed as effulgently as one might find in any conventional nouvelle de romancier, with worlds sundered by the power of lascivious consummation and universes imploding as long-repressed passions flare from the frisson of suspenseful expectation to the fission of the first consummative clinch. Considering, again, Atchity's possibly ironic position to The Messiah Matrix, we might wonder if the author keeping a straight face? Our irrepressible protagonists' love is apparently real and reciprocal, fine in itself, but seemingly forced as far as the fulsome descriptiveness goes. Fortunately, all this verbiage about "electricity" between our stalwarts does not, thank Augustus, lead to an actual scene of faradized fornication.)

Without revealing too much of The Messiah Matrix, while nevertheless suggesting that everything will, like a sacral unveiling, be revealed, this critic would not suggest anyone analyze too closely Atchity's New Advent. Those left dripping at the end of The Da Vinci Code will find no such simple crudities in Atchity's immeasurably more intelligent book. Nevertheless, some relatively simple logico-mathematical formulations—and a bit of reliance on Aristotle's Metaphysics—should be sufficient to dismantle the nascent New Post-Christian Revealed Faith. When the Big News is revealed—again, in decidedly ironic, one might say, satirical terms—at the end of the novel, one can happily grin at the book's conveyance of such an unworkable faith and any attendant ecclesia based thereupon. One has to consider the very nature of the propagandizing, manipulative, disingenuous Emperor Augustus. All this makes for a denouement and coup de theatre that are deliciously wry. How else is one to take the scene where the offspring of Emily and Father Ryan proclaims Duh Word? Is the litany some half-baked Paul Kurtz zeppelin of buncombe? Or is this scene and its material legitimately felt by the author, as an admittedly respectable secular humanist manifesto? Again, however, Atchity intrigues and inveigles, ending the book with a line that seems like a species of oblique, crafty, and adroit Menippean satire, when the rosy-cheeked young minister says, "Don't you know that I must be about the emperor's business?" (Note "emperor" and its tie-back to imperator, or general. Bravo, Atchity! This line is the sort of ingenious, lapidary reference that would have fit right into David Seltzer's The Omen.)

The Messiah Matrix should not convince anyone that it was only some Joe Jerusalem who died on the cross, about as divine as the two thieves flanking the Holy Rood. However, like many mystery stories whose contrivances are satisfyingly temporary but potent, the novel will entertain. This new genre of rejecting Jesus as what the faithful know as Jesus, and fad of delegitimizing Christianity as True Writ, has already spawned, like Scylla and Charybdis, two masterpieces, where denunciations of Christ follow the apothegm indicating that a vigorous rejection of "Him" only engenders a vigorous affirmation. (This paradox was, of course, part of the genuine charm of Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.) Nor is The Messiah Matrix in the genuinely iconoclastic, apocalyptic vein of a novel like James Blish's Black Easter, where magic, working according to physical principles, is used to unleash, for one night, the entire Hosts of Hell, leading, literally, to God's death and the renascence of Dis on Earth. (Take that, Rosemary's Baby!) As in much fiction, the so-called proofs wind up relying more on manipulates than metaphysics, with whatever might be eligible for introduction as author Atchity's "apostasy" reliant, as most are, on a typically inadequate materialism.

As Blaise Pascal wrote in his Pensees:

"I wonder at the hardihood with which such persons undertake to talk about God. Proving God's works from Nature…only gives their readers grounds for thinking that the proofs of our religion are very weak…It is a remarkable fact that no canonical writer has ever used Nature to prove God."

Nevertheless, despite what a casual reader might perceive as a straightforward recit, one utilizing, notably in this instance, proversa oratoria as a stylistic fundament, not a mere flourish, another view is that Atchity has really contrived a sort of mirthful roman noir, a book that may be an inversion of the Dan Brown-type it seems to follow.

If so, The Messiah Matrix resembles some sort of explication of a heresy that really wants to make fun of heresy. In terms of the sacred, venerable Augustus' depiction of how he wished posterity to view him and the "high points of his reign" (cf. Rex Wallace's book), and any charging of religious significance because of the adjectival use of "augustus," The Messiah Matrix actually reduces the first Roman emperor back to being merely a dude named Octavian. Who was that? A canny, manipulative opportunist, favored by a Senate willing to indiscriminately convey influence and de facto tyranny. A chap for whom the cognomen Augustus was undeserved, a golden crown for someone not even deserving a dented tin fillet.

This Augustus was, then, a very base fellow. Neither the Latin version of the bronze inscriptions, Monumentum Ancyranum, nor the version installed at Ancyra (modern Turkish Ankira), the capital of Roman Galatia, dare to describe the real man, who, as a private citizen, unconstitutionally raised an army and, on gaining power, killed his political opponents, although those crimes were spun as pardons.

The Messiah Matrix is a distinguished, exceedingly rich book. Get it.

~Tony Daley 

Writers and Authors Interviews Ken Atchity about The Messiah Matrix

Why Did You Write Such a Heavily-Researched Book as a Novel?

by Jo Linsdell

 I've been asked that question numerous times in interviews and emails, and it's a good one. As a former professor, I wrote more than a handful of scholarly books, and certainly could have expanded on the premise of The Messiah Matrix as nonfiction instead of in the format of a romantic thriller.

My main reason for choosing to write it as a novel is that, to quote Muriel Rukeyser, "the universe is made of stories, not of atoms." I wanted this story to reach its maximum audience, and knew it would never do that as a nonfiction "study" of the origins of Christianity in imperial Rome. Even contemporary quantum physicists would agree that without our perception and report reality would not be all it's cracked up to be. If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one to tell the story it simply doesn't matter whether it fell or not. We humans lead our lives through stories, depending on them as coping mechanisms and guides through the labyrinth of possibilities that face us every day—relying on them as inspiration for continuing the struggle and as consolation when the struggle comes to its inevitable end.

Once in a blue moon an idea comes your way that's worthy of Herman Melville's observation, in Moby Dick: "to write a mighty book you must have a mighty theme." When I started putting together the parallels between Julius and Augustus Caesar and Jesus, I knew no one would take them seriously unless they were presented as part of a contemporary tale of relevance to our world today. I'm not comparing my novel to Moby Dick, nor claiming it's a mighty tale—but its premise was powerful enough to compel me through the forty-something drafts I went through in the four years it was on the drawing board. I'd still like to do some more revising, and will no doubt do so on its way to the screen.

Storytelling is such a privilege that the ancient Greeks put the story teller, teknos, on a par with kings when it came to honoring his appearance in the polis. He was the center of attention because in the preliterate world his songs brought heroic behavior and insight into the human condition to a populace hungry for meaning, for figuring out what life is all about. Today's novelist, making his way from blog to blog in the new frontier that is the Internet, is like that ancient teknos. He is welcome if he tells a story that provokes us, that makes us laugh, or weep, or think.

Pen and Muse Interview : The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity

Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself!I was born in Eunice, Louisiana, and raised in Kansas City, alternating back and forth between Missouri and Louisiana until I left for college at Georgetown. Graduate school at Yale, then professor at Occidental College for twenty years until I left to become a producer and literary manager.

How do you create your characters?I think of someone I know well and care about, use them as a starting point, shaping them  as the story demands.


Tell us about your book? How did it get started?In Jesuit high school, my teachers kept comparing Jesus Christ to Julius Caesar. Then I ran into research that led me further into the connections between Augustus and Christianity. The more I read, the more the story leapt out at me.

What inspires and what got your started in writing?My mother told me I had a terrible imagination, and urged me to start writing stories as she and her south Louisiana siblings did with their front porch tales.

Where do you write? Is there something you need in order to write (music, drinks?)No. I write everywhere. Love writing on the plane, and in exotic locations looking out at wonderful sights like Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, Campo dei Fiori in Rome, or the Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

How do you get your ideas for writing?Things that intrigue me, and that I’m willing to spend a year on, are candidates for a new story. Ideas are everywhere, as omnipresent as air.

What do you like to read?When I’m not sneaking time to re-read a classic like Don Quixote, I prefer thrillers and historical nonfiction, like William Manchester’s The Death of a President, which I recently re-read as background for the film we’re developing, The Kennedy Detail, based on Jerry Blaine and Lisa McCubbins’ bestseller by the same name.


What would your advice to be for authors or aspiring in regards to writing?Don’t let a single day go by without writing. Never give up. Don’t hesitate over rejection, but go out and get as many nos as you can before you get to the yes you need.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Go for it! Use yourself up, body, mind, and soul. That’s what we’re here for.



Read more

Curious Hart Reviews Kenneth Atchity's The Messiah Matrix

The Messiah Matrix is similar in genre and plot to The Da Vinci Code.

The main themes involve question~answer and problem~solution on a local level because they are resolved within the context of the story. However, they do touch on global issues.

The characters are interesting and only slightly clichéd. The best thing about the protagonists is that they display a sense of humor.

The language varies between fresh and formulaic, but that is probably due to the technical information necessary to understand the plot and the conflict.

The narrative is brisk and engaging, and there is no graphic or gratuitous sex, violence, or profanity. There are no noticeable or distracting grammatical or typographical errors.

The conflict of the story is based on a social compact that demands community participation and obedience from its members, those communities being the Roman Catholic Church and the Society of the Jesuits. Both are bound by rules and secrets that set them in opposition to one another.

Overall, I found Messiah Matrix a satisfying read and recommend it to fans of The Da Vince Code.

One thing I noticed in the unfavorable reviews was that some of the reviewers were offended by the subject matter; they responded to it as if the book were non-fiction. They disagreed with its basic premise; one reviewer, in his ire, revealed the whole plot of the book. (I don’t think the author appreciated that.)

H.L. Mencken wrote: “I believe that an artist, fashioning his imaginary worlds out of his own agony and ecstasy, is a benefactor to all of us, but the worst error we can commit is to mistake his imaginary worlds for the real one.” What I Believe

Despite Mr. Atchity’s careful documentation of facts and evidence, I did not mistake Messiah Matrix  for the real world, and that is most likely why I enjoyed reading it.

Read more 

The Writing Life, Carolyn M. Bowen Author Book Review: The Messiah Matrix by Kenneth John Atchity

As an author, I challenge myself to read to enhance my writing skills and to experience new worlds through reading. ~ Kenneth Atchity

That being said, today’s book review is based on “The Messiah Matrix” by author Kenneth John Atchity.

Note Worthy: Religious mystery, action, and romance make this an incredible read!

You first have to believe the possibilities of this religious mystery. Otherwise, the story won’t make sense and the actions of the main and supporting characters will be absurd. That being said…

The Messiah Matrix leads us on an incredible journey with believable research to reinforce the mystery. The characters are well-developed and support the story plot.

There’s a Jesuit priest, F. Ryan McKeon, whose world view is collectively shattered after meeting Emily, the stunning archeologist.

Emily’s finding of an ancient Roman coin recovered from a wreck off the coast of ancient Judea puts her on the path of discovery that threatens the very foundation of the Catholic faith.

She and Ryan fight their way through a passion for one another and the desire to unravel the truth about the historical existence of the real “Christ Savior.”

They follow the maze to intercept the Roman coin while questioning the Vatican’s interest in the valuable asset. Their safety was questionable with the Jesuits leaders involved in murdering one of their own, a once mentor of Ryan McKeon.

You’ll want to follow the investigative leads as the suspense unfolds with romance and suspense to the end. This was an incredible journey that you’ll want to read.

Carolyn M. Bowen, Author

Story Merchant eBook Bargains for Tuesday on BooksGoSocial!

Brae MacKenzie, a successful San Francisco painter, is a woman who seems to have it all but who's felt a sense of loss and longing since childhood. Only $0.99 on Amazon! To what lengths would the Vatican go to suppress the secret origins of its power? "...a unique combination of carefully researched material and breathless adventure story," Book, Bones & Buffy. Only $2.99 on Amazon!

Share these book deals with a friend!