Thank you to Thunder Creek Press and NetGalley for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

As always Avanti Centrae provides us with a fast paced, non stop thriller that will keep you on your toes devouring pages till the wee hours.

Maddy, Bear and Will start their adventure to save and protect a young French teen, Avril, that seems to be able to predict future events. There is some question about this teen's ancestry and if she related to Nostradamus, if so, did she inherit his ability for predicting future events. Avril learns of some of her own mother's secrets that tell of a connection with the twins.
The story has a cliffhanger ending that sets up a future installment for an exciting beginning. Maybe it will lead to a book finally explaining the life of Maddy and Will's mother.

Avanti Centrae https://www.avanticentrae.com is the author of four novels. The Doomsday Medallion , the third book in his VanOps thriller series, was published in 2022. I was able to interview Ms. Centrae in September of 2020.

I received an ARC of this book through https://www.netgalley.com with the expectation of delivering a fair and honest review. Due to scenes of violence, I categorize this novel as R.

Maddy Marshall has just finished her VanOps training and has joined her twin brother Will. With boyfriend and fellow VanOps agent, Bear they set about to find a 16-year-old French girl. The girl had predicted a Chinese attack in the South China Sea. With her successful prediction, which is somehow tied to Nostradamus, she is being sought by many.

The VanOps group must find her and keep her safe. The team must follow the clues to reveal the secret of Nostradamus.

I enjoyed the 8 hours I spent reading this 409-page thriller. The novel is filled with action and intrigue. I had the opportunity to read both of the previous novels (The Lost Power and Solstice Shadows) in this series. While I enjoyed both of them, I think this novel is the best of the three. While the cover art is interesting, it isn’t tied closely to the story. I give this novel a rating of 4.4 (rounded down to 4) out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Another winning effort by Avanti Centrae! The action continues from where it left off in her first two novels. It is great to see the main characters develop and mature as this story unfolds. This is yet another page turner with lots of adventure, action and twists.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thunder Creek Press who provided me with a copy of this book. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

An action packed adventure for the Vanops team characters are well developed. Loved the book roll on the next one.
Thanks to Thunder Creek Press and Netgalley for this review copy.

I've liked the Van Ops series so far and this was another good entry. This one reminded me a lot of the Da Vinci Code and National Treasure, which I think I said in my other two reviews too. I enjoyed seeing character growth and how the overarching mystery continued to grow.

I'm really not sure what it was about this one, but I had a very hard time staying interested in it. There's nothing inherently bad about it and I really enjoyed the first two books in this series, so maybe this one is on me. I just couldn't remember some elements from the previous books and didn't like the MacGuffin of this one.

I will probably be back for the next one, so here's hoping this one was a one off low point for me.

ARC from NetGalley. Opinions my own.

Centrae has given readers another action packed novel. I like how she combines history, science, and legend into an engaging story. The VanOps characters are a mixed bag. Some have special abilities, like Maddy throwing fire balls. While the ability might seem like science fiction, Centrae gives a reasonable scientific explanation. Other characters appear to be quite normal, even with an irritating habit of making jokes in the midst of a serious time.

I like the central aspect of the plot of powerful people wanting the ability to predict the future. We learn quite a bit about Nostradamus when one of his descendants, a teen, hits the mark in one of her many predictions. The ultimate lesson learned from the chase for Nostradamus' secret is surprising and enlightening.

There is lots of travel by the Van Ops team, from one end of Europe to the other. Part of my enjoyment of novels by Centrae is all the locations involved. The action in the novel is periodic with sections of travel and historical investigation in between. I really appreciate Centrae's historical note at the end, indicating fact and fiction.

This is another engaging and informative novel in the series.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent and honest review.

Maddie, Will and Bear find themselves on a new mission to find out if a young girl in France can really predict the future and to endeavor to stop the invasion of Taiwan by China. This mission takes them all over Europe facing danger everywhere as they race to uncover the secrets of Nostradamus whilst keeping his descendant alive. Its exciting and action pact and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

The doomsday medallion by Avanti Centrae.
A VanOps Thriller - #3.
Sixteenth-century French prophet Nostradamus predicted the Great Fire of London, Napoleon’s conquest, Hitler’s rule, and the atomic bomb. Can the VanOps team keep the old seer’s secrets out of blood-stained hands? Aikido black belt Maddy Marshall is celebrating the completion of her black ops training when news of a military takeover in the South China Sea shocks the world because it was predicted by a sixteen-year-old French student. When intel chatter spells danger to Avril, the young seer, VanOps Director Bowman assigns Marshall and her twin brother, Will Argones, to protect the girl. Emotions between the siblings are running hot due to their aunt’s recent stroke, which has reminded them of the childhood accident that scarred both his chin and her heart. Tensions ratchet higher when they arrive at Avril’s home to find the instant social media star has been kidnapped, leaving them with only clenched fists and cryptic clues that lead to a formula encoded on an etched-bronze medallion.While Taiwan fears an invasion that will set off an apocalyptic chain of events, Marshall and Argones race through medieval French towns, Italian cathedrals, and ancient Greek temples attempting to find Avril before their enemies use the girl to discover the Holy Grail of military intelligence. If the team fails, they won’t need a crystal ball to know millions of innocent souls will be destined to join Nostradamus in the afterlife.
A good read with good characters. A little slow. I did like the Nostradamus bit. 4*.

I'm excited to find a female author of fast-paced, danger-laden, globe-trotting thrillers. Surely there are multiple female authors in this subgenre, but one thinks first of various famous [bestselling] male Thriller authors. THE DOOMSDAY MEDALLION is the third in the exciting VanOps Series, featuring a covert government subset whose agents include meditators and users of a form of ball Lightning energy. So this Series is cutting-edge, and its combination of well-characterized emotions with exciting plot lines and intense villains creates an involving read. In THE DOOMSDAY MEDALLION, Chinese invasion of a South Pacific island very near independent Taiwan is inextricably linked to the search for a lost Nostradamus formula for viewing the future, the goal of a pair of stop-at-nothing villains.

Nostradamus was famous for his use of herbs and his predictions. It was believed by some that he discovered a formula that enabled him to see the future. Now Avril, a 16 year old French student descended from Nostradamus has predicted China’s invasion of one of Taiwan’s islands in the South China Sea. Maggie Marshall, a trained agent of VanOps, and her brother Will Argones are assigned to find and protect Avril after intel points to a kidnapping threat. Their assignment becomes a rescue mission when they arrive too late to prevent the attack. From a nearby shop, Avril witnessed the attack, managed to evade the kidnappers and has now gone into hiding. When Maggie goes to consult an expert on Nostradamus she finds Avril arriving to also meet him. Discovered by the kidnappers, it leads to a chase through France.

Avril’s prize possession is a box that once belonged to Nostradamus. As Maggie examines the box she discovers a number of secret compartments that contain cryptic clues to the location of a medallion containing Nostradamus’ formula. Deciphering the clues leads Will, Avril, Maggie and her boyfriend Bear to Belgium, Italy and finally Greece as they explore cathedrals and historic sites to find further clues. If they can find the medallion then thousands of lives may be saved. There are others searching who are ruthless and have the resources needed to track the VanOps team.

Bear is also a VanOps agent who is fascinated by history. He provides historical context and commentary for the various sites that they search. Maggie and Will are twins who are still dealing with guilt over an accident that cost their mother’s life. They are also divided by their beliefs in philosophy and spirituality. It is up to Bear to step in and keep the peace between them as they continue their quest for the medallion. Fans of the puzzles faced by Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon and the high action Sigma Force thrillers of James Rollins will enjoy The Doomsday Medallion and look forward to the next mission for Avanti Centrae’s VanOps unit. I would like to thank NetGalley and Thunder Creek Press for providing this book for my review.

Book Review: The Doomsday Medallion (VanOps #3) by Avanti Centrae
Published by Thunder Creek Press, March 8, 2022

★★★★☆ (4.25 Stars) Rave

With her engaging brand of "east meets west and science meets spirituality", author Avanti Centrae takes her readers from the ancient mysteries of the Winter Solstice (Book 2) to the prophetic quatrains of one M. Michel de Nostredame.

// The Doomsday Medallion, VanOps Book 3.
Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, sud de la France. //

All hell breaks loose when a sixteen-old-year French social media star predicts the exact moment the People's Liberation Army capture the Pratas, a small chain southwest of Taiwan in the South China Sea, leaving the island nation beleaguered, and the rest of the world on their toes.

The teen may have unleashed an incalculable military weapon.

Avril, a black teenager with a scarred face, is subsequently besieged and threatened by intelligence agencies and mercenaries. It is rumored that her clairvoyance may stem from a secret formula tucked inside a medallion hidden for generations by descendants of the famous seer, Nostradamus.

To the rescue, the vaunted VanOps strike force led by Maddy Marshall, a twenty-something cyber coding expert turned black ops operator, distant member of the Spanish Royal family and of a secret ancient order, and adoptive mother to a precocious refugee child named AJ.

// Aikidō (合気道), "The Way of Unifying with Life Energy" //

Aikido master Maddy has developed an ability to hurl horrifying balls of lightning with her bare palms (Book 2), using her "Ki" (Qi /Chi), her own life force's "zero-point" energy combined with the superconductivity emitted by a mysterious artifact from space, now identified as lorandite.

As the VanOps team scours through Les Prophéties, Nostradamus' collection of 942 poetic quatrains first published in 1555, they dodge bullets and search caves, vaults and crevices in France, The Netherlands and Italy, all through the Temple of Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi on Mount Parnassus...

-----

I just love how the author creatively incorporates the legendary Japanese anime series "Dragon Ball Z"'s ball of lightning off the palms, with a more scientific, quantum computing approach.

This is one fun and engaging action-thriller that whets curiosity and the intellect, spiced with science, history, languages, ancient rituals and traditions, with a sprinkling of sci-fi, anime and YA themes.

Review based on an advanced reading copy courtesy of Thunder Creek Press and NetGalley.

thriller, survivor's guilt, survival, suspense, suspicion, Europe, European history, prophecy, family-dynamics, false-information, espionage, abduction, assassins, teamwork, political-intrigue, historical-places-events, historical-research, international-crime-and-mystery, international-tensions*****

The publisher's blurb is pretty good for an intro, and no spoilers here. An amazing read!
The ongoing characters are back and working twice as hard to achieve their goals. This time they are protecting a current day descendant of Nostradamus who has clearly demonstrated a facility for prophecy/predictions and posted them on TikTok.
Not only are the descriptions spot on, but the author's world class imagination brilliantly conveys everything there is to see and feel in this complex and unpredictable thriller!
I read the first two VanOps in 2019 and 2020 and loved them, but I did not reread in prep for this one, so I think that it probably does work for stand-alone.
I requested and received a free e-book copy from Thunder Creek Press/Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) via NetGalley.

Nostradamus was a world-class prognosticator who encoded many predictions that have proven to be true. Major world powers caught wind of a walnut box left to his offspring that may hold some predictions having world affecting results. A mad scramble has begun to find the box and utilize its’ potential.

Avril is just sixteen when her grandparents tell her about the box. Her mother was tragically lost when she was born. She made a prediction that China would attack and take control of a small island near Taiwan. This happened and now and the major world powers want to know how she could have known! A couple of operatives are sent from the Lake Tahoe, California region to find and protect the young girl. China also sent a very skilled team to capture her.

Avanti Centrae is very adept at building and keeping suspense throughout her story. At her age, Avril’s major fault is that she feels competent enough to do everything on her own. She ditches the people sent to protect her and rushes headlong into a foreign powers’ clutches.

Can Avril be found in time or will she disappear into the dark world of espionage and be forever lost to the world as she knows it?

This saga is very entertaining and will keep most readers flipping pages of the well-plotted, fast-paced technothriller. 5 stars – CE Williams

The Doomsday Medallion is an excellent thriller. It's a international story that travels the ancient world looking for the code to the Nostradamus predictions. I enjoyed the scenic descriptions and the characters. Well worth the read.