BookMusings: (Re)Discovering Pagan Literature

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Book Review: Undiscovered

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Title: Undiscovered (Treasure Hunter Security Book One)

Publisher/Author: Anna Hackett

Pages: 248 pp 

Price: .99 cents (ebook) / $9.99 (paperback)

Layne Rush is an archaeologist: dedicated, smart, fearless, and driven to uncover the secrets of the past. Declan Ward is a former Navy SEAL; after barely escaping a dishonorable discharge for disobeying orders, he founded Treasure Hunter Security. When Layne is attacked at her dig site in Egypt and priceless artifacts are stolen, Ward and his team are hired to protect her and recover the relics -- relics which may lead them to the fabled city of Zerzura, lost to the sands of the Western Desert millennia ago ....

I have previously recommended Hackett's wild science fiction adventure, Among Galactic Ruins. There is an interesting connection between the two books: Among Galactic Ruins is set on an alien world in the far future which the human colonists named Zerzura ... after a fabled lost city on Old Earth.

Hackett's books are the literary equivalent of rocky road ice cream. And I mean that as the highest of compliments. They are pure escapist fun. Daring adventure, narrow escapes, muscular heroes, sassy heroines, nasty villains, lost treasure, booby traps, more narrow escapes, more lost treasure, and a much-deserved happily ever after.

Hackett does her homework, though, and that shows in Undiscovered. Zerzura is a "real" mythical city, and Hackett incorporates the various stories and symbols centered around it into her novel. Further, she ties it to the Egyptian God Set, naming it as the location of a cult in His honor. There's a whole mythological/theological and historical lesson cleverly hidden in these pages, as Layne explains to Ward (and the reader) the unification of ancient Egypt, the demonization of Set, His role as protector, and the resurgence of devotion to Him in the New Kingdom.

If I have one complaint, it is that the action scenes tend to be very abbreviated. Sequences which should go on for several paragraphs (or even pages) are crammed into a few terse lines. Consider the (minor spoilers) scene featuring the set-animals; I had to fill in some of the gaps myself, adding sound and color to the oddly spare description.

If you are looking for a fun, fast read which treats Kemetic history and spirituality respectfully, check out Undiscovered.

Recommended to fans of Seressia Glass' Seducing the Jackal, the Gods of Egypt series by Veronica Scott, the Eye of Odin series by Dennis Staginnus, and The Blades of the Rose series by Zoey Archer. 

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Rebecca Buchanan is the editor of the Pagan literary ezine Eternal Haunted Summer. She is also the editor-in-chief of Bibliotheca Alexandrina. She thinks it is incredibly unfair that she must work for a living rather than being able to read all day. In her next life, she would like to be a library cat.

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