The Return by Carter Vance

The Return by Carter Vance
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Release Date: January 31st 2012

Thriller, suspense, action, intrigue: The Return is a story of the modern day fulfillment of the Grail prophecy.
The time has come for the prophesied return of Christ. Long thought extinct, the secret Order of Knights Templar battle the Dark Forces that fear His return.
At the center of this battle of good & evil are Sarah Davidson, an expectant mother with an unique heritage, & Peter Christos, her shipping magnate husband. The couple, who were married in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant, is confronted with a series of surreptitious schemes & attacks causing them to flee to seek a secure birthplace for their son.
They are aided in this endeavor by the Knights Templar, a clandestine organization that has, over the centuries, amassed enormous wealth & power & the organization to deliver it in anticipation of this day.
Ultimately, they engage in a grand battle for the prophesied birth.

When the author of The Return contacted me for a review of his novel I was intrigued. This is, quite frankly, not usually the type of novel I'd read, and though some other reviewers have compared this to The Da Vinci Code, having never read that myself I cannot make that comparison. All I can do is give my opinion on this book in and of itself.

To start, you were thrown immediately into the action, without very much of a build up, Geoff finds the book that sets off the whole story on the first page. The book then keeps with that pace the entire length, and I'm just not sure this was a good thing. There are many places within the book that I found myself really enjoying the story line, and the idea itself is a fascinating one. Yet, I truly regret to say that it just did not work for me. Besides the pace, I just didn't find the emotion that I strive to find to make a novel a favorite for me. Mr. Vance certainly has it, "it" being the ability to draw readers in and make them keep reading, and because of this I feel that I would read more from him in the future. It's just in this one, I feel like it could have been twice as long and so much better.

All that being said, if you happen to be a fan of this type of novel then by all means do read it, the story that it tells despite the small short-comings is riveting. Although this type of novel isn't usually my thing, and even though there were those parts I didn't like, I cannot say I find myself at all regretting having read it. I honestly look forward to seeing what Carter Vance has in store for us next!

**I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review, which in no way affected my opinion.**