Lots of telling, not enough showing. And the main character is quite a Mary Sue - young, beautiful, knows everything about everything, also a badass karate master, etc etc. Just a bit too over the top, and the writing style bugs me. ( )

Good story ( )

Listened to the graphic audio.

These really aren't amazing works of fiction but I'm kind of depressed and campy "movie in your mind!" adventure stuff is like comfort food.

Going to listen to a few more before I delve into something requiring concentration I think. ( )

I decided to try out this series as I had noticed through my library that they had over 40 books in the series, so I wanted to try something just a little bit different. By looking through the reviews on here, this book is up and down from one stars to five stars, which tells me that it is random for some people and what impressed or didn't impress them. I am in the impressed category as with this first book it grabbed me right away in the first chapter with some action continuing on with mystery, suspense, adventure, and lots more action.

Annja Creed is an archaeologist a/k/a treasure hunter a/k/a adventurer. She has been interested in locating the Beast of Gevaudin which is considered a legend in France. Annja decides to go on an adventure to France to see what she can find. On her quest to find the Beast, she stumbles into another mysterious find which leads her into a fight with some villains who are after a certain treasure. Trying to escape the clutches of these bad guys she meets up with a old man named "Roux" who helps her escape.

After the meet up with Roux, the book keeps twisting and turning with more mysteries as Annja is lead to what is considered the sword by Joan of Arc. As she pursues all these different treasures she is basically hunted by all kinds of bad guys including some monks from a monastery. The whole book was a mystery and a thrill ride as Annja goes from one extreme to another finding treasures and fleeing bad men.

I would consider the character, Annja to be a cross between Indiana Jones and Lara Croft (the video game heroine) as she basically has the skills of both of them to get her through and out of her predicaments. I found the book refreshing and fun as the action just keeps kicking from the first chapter to the last chapter. I will be continuing on with the series, but it is going to take awhile as there are a total of 61 books in this series! I look forward to pursuing all of them in the future. Giving this book four stars!
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Annja Creed finds 'coin' which completes Joan d'Arc's sword and becomes bound to it.