Review: The Tenth Circle by Jon Land

From Goodreads.com FBlaine McCracken races to stop terrorists from unleashing an ancient weapon of unimaginable power at the president’s State of the Union speech

Blaine McCracken pulled off the impossible on a mission in Iran, but his work has just begun. Returning to the US, he faces another terrible threat in the form of Reverend Jeremiah Rule, whose hateful rhetoric has inflamed half the world, resulting in a series of devastating terrorist attacks. But Rule isn’t acting alone. A shadowy cabal is pulling his strings, unaware that they are creating a monster who will soon spin free of their control.

Finding himself a wanted man, McCracken must draw on skills and allies both old and new to get to the heart of a plot aimed at unleashing no less than the tenth circle of hell. A desperate chase takes him into the past, where the answers he needs are hidden amid two of history’s greatest puzzles: the lost colony of Roanoke and the Mary Celeste. As the clock ticks down to an unthinkable maelstrom, McCracken and his trusty sidekick, Johnny Wareagle, must save the United States from a war the country didn’t know it was fighting, and that it may well lose.

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 My Rating: 1 star out of 5

The premise of this novel hooked me right off the bat. I LOVE novels that fall into this genre because they are always so fast paced that I find myself sucked in from page one, and oftentimes lose sleep trying to finish.

Unfortunately, that was not the case for The Tenth Circle. The story rarely seemed to move forward, choosing instead to fill chapters with "back-story" that took away from the overall plot instead of adding to it. The author also seemed to love ending chapters on what would have been a "cliff-hanger" which would have been awesome, if he didn't wait so long to reveal what had happened/been seen. By the time it was revealed, I had forgotten what had lead up to it to begin with. 

With many of the scenes completely unbelievable, it was hard to take most of this book seriously. In fact, I found myself rolling my eyes several times thinking to myself "yeah right" as I tried to get through all 100 chapters. Instead of the page gripping two days I expected to finish this book in, it was closer to a week of "must finish this for my review". 

This is one of the few books I would NOT recommend. 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of The Tenth Circle in return for my honest review. This does not in any way reflect upon my review. All thoughts/opinions of this novel are 100% my own.