Take one shot of Templar secrets, a half shot of romance, one shot secret society, one shot time travel and one shot ruthless megalomaniac; shake well and you get this novel.
Grace St. John is a scholar specialising in ancient manuscripts who is deciphering a set of recently discovered papers that appear to be a key to a lost treasure. When she finds herself on the run after her ruthless boss kills her husband and brother she decides that the papers must be very important and she works on translating them, with a little help from an interesting variety of characters.

What she eventually discovers changes her world.

Now it's not a bad read, Graces' growth is quite interesting and dragged me in but the resolution left me a little unsatisfied and I'm finding it difficult to work out why. It falls somewhere between a romance novel and the Da Vinci code and I found it quite readable. ( )

loved this book...loved the growth of the heroine ( )

I thought the whole thing was very entertaining. A few loopholes, but who cares? This was a riveting thriller of a time travel novel and I ate it up - all while on my non-stop flight from California to Newark. I highly recommend it!

http://ktleyed.blogspot.com/2008/08/o... ( )

Grace St. John works for a private archaeological foundation as a translator and interpreter of old documents. Her latest project is a cache of 14th century documents about the Knights Templar and a mysterious powerful treasure that completely fascinate and baffle her - but she never would have considered that someone would be willing to commit murder to get their hands on them. When she and her family are targeted by those hungry for the power the legend promises, Grace needs all of her wits to survive and discover the truth behind the Templars' secret and the mysterious connection she feels with its fierce guardian, Black Niall.

This is another one of those books where the blurb on the back really gives away too much about stuff that doesn't happen until the last third or so. A pity, too, because the writing would otherwise make the first half of the book (puzzling out the identity and secrets) much more suspenseful and intriguing (think the page-turning quality of the Da Vinci Code, but with better writing).

The technology is a bit dated, the romantic side of things seemed a bit rushed to me (but I was expecting a romance), and the major premise requires some pretty serious suspension of disbelief - but I knew that from the beginning. After all, I personally ran across this in a time-travel thread - and it says that on the back of the book too. But the book was gripping and a lot darker than I had expected. Suspense abounded, some of it downright heart-pounding. And it's about the Templars - I LOVE the Templars. So I thought it was a good read - though one that I would put in the airplane read category, and one that I would have enjoyed more had I come into it with different expectations.

Also posted at my blog. ( )

One of the best time travel romances I've ever read. I enjoy the characters and the story equally upon each re-read. ( )