Secret history novels are always fun for me...they put a spin on the facts that usually makes very little sense, but has the lovely quality of being off-the-wall...and this outing into that garden of fantasy is no disappointment.

If James Rollins had written a woman-centered story, this is what it would feel like. Since I like James Rollins, I think of that as a compliment. Salem and Bel, with their matrilineal cultish secret society, The Underground, are in opposition to the male-dominated world-spanning cult, The Order...don't you love the harkening back to the antique world's division of authority into women/Earth::men/land?...each side ready to lie, cheat, and kill to accomplish their goals. The two (so far) stories in Salems world make it clear that the nightmare of christian nationalism and fascistic order/totalitarianism are only going to be effectively opposed by women organizing and taking their power back into their own hands.

This being a message I am totally on board with, I say go get you a copy and learn what one intelligent, observant woman thinks is worth fighting for, and how to do it. I won't say it's a roadmap since we live in mundane reality not Conspiracytopia, but I will say I agree that the stakes are existential.

When the next woman is nominated to run for president I will not be surprised if she faces some sort of threat very similar to this story's plot. There is no reason to think that the incels and MAGAts will change in the next four years. I hope that somewhere there is an actual real-life cabal of powerful women ready to blast the patriarchy that will come gunning for her. If they had the quasi-mystical powers that the Underground...do you not just love the echoes of Persephone in that name?...and if they could just use Emily Dickinsons poetry a a cipher, too....

The idea of power in the hands of women scares some men so badly that they will stoop to anything to stop it from occurring. This being amply demonstrated by the events of 2016, when the first version of this book came out, the anxiety that propeled this story reads as relevant today as it ever has. Absent some Great Dismantling of the patriarchy, the plot of this story will remain evergreen.

An excellent investment of a minimal amount of money, for very solid return of pleasure in the read.

I had a very difficult time reading this book.

I requested a copy from NetGalley because I have loved all the books by Jess Lourey that I read in the past. I had no idea that this one would be so.... so.... HARD. There are people brutally murdered throughout the book. The entire plot was just too violent for my taste.

It opens with two women who are obviously afraid of something or someone and a neighbor being brutally murdered while the women try to escape. Their daughters are caught up in this web and also soon find themselves fleeing for their lives. Why is all this happening?

It is because there is an ancient (and I mean ancient - like over 2000 years ancient) organization that is misogynistic. And of course, the mothers belong to the group which is trying to end the "reign of terror" that this group has perpetuated all these years. In the meantime, the bloodthirsty henchman for the Hermitage is ruthlessly murdering as he goes across the country seeking Salem and Bel

I guess the bottom line was that I found it almost impossible to spend my disbelief and enjoy the plot line. It seemed too contrived. It was as though Ms. Lourey was trying to combine Dan Brown's works with National Treasure.

The characters were certainly developed. If I met them somewhere I'd instantly know who they are by the physical descriptions and their mannerisms. Certainly Ms. Lourey did a good job with that part.

I had received this book a couple of years ago and had just put off reading it because I wanted to save it until a time I could really savor it. Now the sequel is coming out and I knew I needed to read this one first. I am very sorry that I ever requested these books from NetGalley and will be much more careful about Jess Lourey's books in the future.

Sadly, I don't think I can recommend this book to anyone.

(I received an ARC from the NETGALLEY)

RATING: 1 STAR

"Salem Wiley is a genius cryptanalyst, courted by the world's top security agencies ever since her quantum computing breakthrough. She's also an agoraphobe shackled to a narrow routine since her father's suicide. When her intelligence work unexpectedly exposes a sinister plot to assassinate the country's first viable female presidential candidate, Salem finds herself both target and detective in a modern day witch hunt. Drawn into a labyrinth of messages encrypted by Emily Dickinson and codes tucked inside the Beale Cipher a hundred years earlier, Salem begins to uncover the truth: an ancient and ruthless group is hell-bent on ruling the world, and only a select group of women stands in its way." (From Publisher)

This novel can be compared to The Da Vinci Code - another novel I did not like. This book started out with promise but I just couldn't connect with the characters. The story line started to get a bit dull and I soon started to not care where the book was going. The flashback scenes for Salem were a bit annoying rather than helpful. I skimmed the last third of the book just to see how it ended.