I was given a PDF of this book for purpose of honest review by the author. I was not compensated for the review, and it is honestly given and all words are my responsibility.

I will say that if you are a fan of conspiracy theories, and enjoyed Dan Brown, you most certainly will appreciate this book. The author has gone into great detail to research the history of secret societies and the lore that fuels their mystique. This story focuses on the acts of two main groups, the Preppers (or Prepared ones) and the Freemasons, and the battle to control the world.

The Preppers are working against the goals of the Freemasons, who condone all manner of activities to obtain their goal of unilateral governmental control, including murder, satanic ritualization and political upheaval. Like many conspiracy theories, there is never truly one clear cut and defined “good” guy or “bad guy” – all have their reasons and their failures, and use the means to justify the end result.

I found this book enjoyable, with a few exceptions. In places I found the writing to need some editing, there were typos that made little sense from a proofreading perspective. I’m strangely neurotic about these things. There were also some issues with story continuity and realism – you cannot, for example, take a taxi to the Statue of Liberty. As a first novel, I thought it was a well created and crafted work, and hope that the author continues to expend what obviously was a copious amount of research time to get little distinctions correct.

If you are looking for a read that will open the door to yet another master plan to take over the world, you can’t go far wrong reading this book. My expectation is that the story is the first in a series, which would explain the unfinished feel at the end, and only hope that the subsequent volume will do this first book justice.

I gave this book a solid 4 stars. The book is genre listed as Action/Adventure/Paranormal – among others, and may be rather disappointing for those looking to find more paranormal and layers of political intrigue. But, it will have great appeal to those who appreciate conspiracy theories and enjoy some historical facts and context in their reading. It was, a solid effort and an enjoyable read.
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Dina Rae has woven conspiracy theories together so well that are so realistic, it is almost scary. You will close this book and wonder - could this really happen?

Rae explores secret socities, destiny, and a master minded plan to take over the world, and writes it all in a manner within which a layman can understand. What impressed me the most about the writing of this book was the attention to detail with historic facts and documents. The research alone to write this book must have taken hundreds of hours and it definitely paid off!

If you are a lover of conspiracy theories this is definitely the book for you. Certainly holds a candle to anything Dan Brown writes.

The book is quite long but sails along smoothly and I would highly recommend reading it.

This review was originally posted on Reviews4Reviews.com ( )

Ahh. Where to start?? This book is definitely something else, that's for sure. This book not only jumps from different POV's but also from different times, so you get a kind of whiplash jumping from the past, to the present, to deeper into the past and then back to the present. It's quite tiresome. To get down to the point, this book delves into conspiracy theories, free masonry, the Illuminati and religion. I for one don't care much for conspiracy theories and would rather not buy into that stuff, but reading this book kinda flashed some light on that. You know how you read fictional books and you wish they were real, but you know they're not? You have a strong hold onto reality, right? Well, this book, I feel like that line for me is blurred. I can't help but acknowledge that maybe the Illuminati and all this New World Order stuff is real and it sorta freaked me out to the point where I really considered DNFing this book. But, I stuck with it and finished it. It was interesting, I'll give you that, interesting enough for me to finish the book.

I didn't like the book, because I didn't agree with a lot of what was happening. Blame it on my upbringing, but while reading this book I couldn't help but include my morals in my thought process with some of the actions of the characters. Also, the jumping around from POV's and time frames, again, it was tiring. I'm usually really good about reading books with multiple POV's, but this one was just too much, I felt like I was playing a game of tag and I could never catch up *sigh* Now, I didn't completely dislike this book, it had it's up points as well. One of those being the characters, aside from the crazy things that happened in this book, the characters were well developed and so danged believable. Another thing I liked about this book was that it balanced all the conspiracy mumbo jumbo with religion. I'd rather not read a book with any kind of religion stuff in it, but I was thankful for that in this book. I felt that after reading about devil worshiping, a little faith definitely got me through to finishing this book.

I've been on the fence about recommending this book since I got far enough into it to develop thoughts. I wouldn't recommend this book if you're totally against reading anything having to do with free masonry, Illuminati and all that jazz. However, if you're into that kinda thing, jump right on it. Aside from that, this book is well written and definitely kept me reading despite my wanting to DNF'ing it. ( )

The Last Degree is an intriguing conspiracy theory novel filled with an intricate agenda by the Freemasons to gain control and dominate the world in order to create a one global government. The storyline focuses on the conspiracy of the Freemasons, and their attempt at a global takeover by any means necessary to attain their goal ... New World Order.

The author weaves a fascinating tale rich with descriptions of the secret societies and attention to detail backed with historical research and documentation. The characters are realistic and calculating, it makes one ponder about just how powerful and dangerous these people can really be if their plans were ever realized. As a person who generally doesn't read this type of novel, I have to admit that it made me sit up and wonder 'what if?' ... I'm sure that this is exactly what author Dina Rae had intended when she wrote this novel, and I think she's succeeded. I can only imagine the depth of research that went into this novel, this is a really intriguing story that will make people sit up and take notice. I think author Dina Rae has found herself a new home among the conspiracy theorist authors, kudos on a fascinating novel.

Conspiracy theory fans, this novel is right up your alley, so place this one on your reading list, you won't be disappointed!

RATING: 3 STARS *** (My Rating) / 4 STARS **** (Amazon Rating)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for my honest review and for hosting a virtual book event on my book review blog site.

Virtual Book Event: On Friday, June 1, 2012, author Dina Rae participated in a virtual book event with an Author Guest Post on Jersey Girl Book Reviews.
http://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com/2012/06/author-guest-post-dina-rae-aut...

http://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com/2012/06/last-degree-by-dina-rae.html ( )