Prophecy of Days Book 1
The Daykeeper's Grimoire (Prophecy of Days Book 1)by Christy Raedeke
The story of Caity Mac Fireland, a girl from San Francisco whose parents drag her to an isle off the coast of Scotland to manage some family property. Caity finds that a Mayan relic is concealed there, intentionally left centuries ago by Mayan Daykeepers in an attempt to keep their profound knowledge about the year 2012 alive into the current era.As she delves into this world of secret knowledge, Caity is helped along by a visiting family friend and Feng Shui master, Uncle Li; a Mayan elder named Bolon; and Mr. Papers, her pet monkey that communicates through origami. A handsome Scottish lad gets pulled into the intrigue, as do several other people with questionable motives and loyalties. Caity must weave together a tapestry of information in order to make her radical discovery, a mystery protected by an elite coterie of power-brokers who influence world events. Caity’s twenty-first century mind is put to the test as she tries to uncover the answer to an ancient riddle while trying to outwit this powerful group that will stop at nothing to control the secret, and her. (goodreads.com)
I got halfway through this book, put it down and said to my husband, "I don't think I'm smart enough for this book!" This is not to say that I didn't like it, in fact, I loved this book and WANT MORE NOW!!!!!I got a little worried when they started talking about 2012. If you know me, you know I do not deal at all well with End of the World scenarios. And I know that there's all this talk about the Mayan's predicting the end of the world with the end of their calendar on December 21, 2012. My friend Monkey will expressly tell me what books not to read because she knows I would not handle them well. I have not read the Hunger Games series because of this, and another series that I was trying to link to on Monkey's blog but I can't think of the stupid title of the book. It has a moon on it and it's about those who survived after the world ended somehow? [EDIT: Thanks to Kristi's post of her Top 10 Book Covers, I now recall the book is called Life as We Knew It. That's the book I will not read! Thanks, Kristi!]Anyhow. I can't deal with it. *shudder*But this book has an interesting twist - that 12-21-2012 will be the beginning of a new era. Not so much that we're all going to die. At least not anyone under 20. (Sucks to be me, I guess.) Once I sort of got the gist of what angle the story was taking I calmed down a little.Caity is a charming voice for a narrator. She's funny and smart and really draws you in to what's going on. The prologue is highly humourous and reminded me slightly of the way Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe was written. The unbelievability of everything that was happening seemed pretty genuine as the story progressed. I was a little skeptical of the young people traveling all over the world without problems - they had to be, what? 15 years old maybe? And there was no problem with the flying all over the place without supervision or reason? I know how difficult it is to get through airport security these days, I think there should have been at least one incident where they were questioned. ;)Other than that I enjoyed the book immensely. Well, not the math and science parts because I'll admit my eyes glazed over for a little part of the story while it sort of sounded like I was reading a text book. A humourous and more interesting textbook mind you, but it was very facts, facts, math, math, science, facts for a little stretch as everything was explained and I got lost and just moved on rather than looked back. (Inner voice: "MATH! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! AHHHHH!")This book is just over 350 pages but it feels longer - in a good way! The book is heavy (physically) and the font is small (not too small) and there is a lot of meat to this story that makes it a longer read than most 300 page YA books these days. It makes you think (and I don't like to think, but I'll forgive the author because she wrote an amazing story) and it grabs you and pulls you in so that time passes and you don't even know it.I was so happy to see that my bookstore had the book in stock (since it doesn't seem to be stocking any of the other 2010 Debs books so far, which is really putting a hitch in my challenge list!) and that it was a $10 trade paperback. I broke my ban and picked it up. Had I known they were going to get it I might not have bought the third Gallagher Girls book last week, but oh well. It does look like my crappy town library will be getting The Owl Keeper though so I guess I'll renew my membership this summer and pick that one up for the challenge! Yay, an English book that's more current than 2005 in that library!When will there be a Book 2? I don't know. I can't find information about that anywhere. I know there must be one, aside from the cover stating that this is Book 1, the ending of the book is very much a cliffhanger, so there HAS to be one! I will be picking it up as soon as it hits the shelves I tell you!The Prophecy of Days series