The Expected One
Author: Kathleen McGowan
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9780743295345
Katheen McGowan offers readers an intriguing page-turner of a story that combines her real research into the Mary Magdalene history, myth and legend with a plot that is almost as mystifying as a Dan Brown thriller. Suffice to say, it will definitely appeal to readers who want to know more about the controversies surrounding the alleged wife of Jesus and mother of his children.
This time, the story centres on a woman named Maureen Paschal, an American author and journalist who discovers she is the 'Expected One’ who is destined to bring the gospel of the Magdalene to the world.
Maureen begins experiencing visions of Mary Magdalene during her field trip to Israel to do research on Magdalene for her book and investigates them with her journalistic abilities. Soon she's in the middle of one of the oldest conspiracies, the focal point of a conflict between two rival secret societies, the heir to Mary Magdalene.
But Maureen is totally unprepared for the challenge, or for the danger she finds herself in once word gets out of her powerful and royal lineage.
With the help of her cousin Peter Healy, a Catholic priest, and a few people she learns to trust along the way (although some betray her), Maureen sets out for the south of France to visit the actual places the wife of Jesus walked and lived.
Filled with historical facts amidst the exciting fiction, The Expected One follows Maureen’s own personal discovery even as she finds the truths behind the Magdalene legend and how she is intimately linked with that legend.
Though the book will automatically have readers thinking of The Da Vinci Code and a number of Templar novels that have preceded it, this is quite a treat in itself because McGowan gives us well-rounded characters, rich description and plenty of history all interwoven together to keep us turning the pages, eager to reach the climactic ending which the intensifying action and intrigue promise.
This is an enjoyable read, especially the last few pages where the author talks about her actual research and what led her to write the book, which is the first of three installments in the Magdalene trilogy. It’s fun, too, trying to decipher what might be fact and what might be fiction, but in the end, you get the feeling that no matter which is which, what we have been told all along is not all it seems. Intriguing.