St. Martin’s Press
175 5th Avenue NY, NY 10010
http://us.macmillan.com/smp.aspx
9780312942168 $6.99
I knew from the first page that I was going to love this series. My only regret was that I came into it on the third book. The first two, Chasing Eden and Beyond Eden, introduce Army Chaplain Jamie Richards who stumbles upon a hidden community called Eden that has existed since the beginning of time. It is an advanced civilization that sends out operatives when something happens in the world outside of Eden that could have devastating effects. Jamie, now an operative herself in the third book, Treasure of Eden, must prevent a global financial catastrophe by shepherding an Eden financial expert to a conference in Switzerland. When that duty is over, Jamie is kidnapped by a rogue CIA agent who is sure she knows the whereabouts of a jeweled box that will point to the location of Eden. Jamie faces betrayal, torture, and loss as she once more is tossed into undercover operations and intrigue.
I couldn’t put this book down. The characters are vivid. The good guys are heroic, the evil characters are dastardly, and the rest are humanly flawed yet noble. The action is non-stop and the cultural landscape author S.L. Linnea places these characters upon is richly drawn with details that make readers live the experiences with Jamie and her cohorts. Though Jamie is a chaplain, she is fearless, heroic, and can kick some mighty butt. Yet, she is also compassionate, sensual, and sometimes slips in a curse word or two like the humans we all are. This choice was genius in Linnea’s portrayal of her and the other operatives of Eden.
What I need to do now is track down the other two books so that I can be ready to read the next book Linnea has in the Eden series, Serpent of Eden, a special edition book that tells what happened to Jamie inside Eden. I can’t wait!
