When an ancient relic of Camelot goes missing, who do Arthur and his knights call? Nia Rivers, ancient immortal archaeologist extraordinaire, of course.
Nia jumps at the chance to go to Camelot, especially since she’s been banned in the past. Thankfully, Arthur is willing to let Nia’s past breaches of his castle, theft attempts, and a certain debacle with his sword be bygones if she’ll help him recover the Holy Grail. But as Nia strives to keep her fingers to herself, enemies from the past resurfaces in a race to acquire the ancient holy relic.
As Nia and the knights head on a quest to get to the treasure, Nia gets a revelation about her heritage which could spell doom for those of her kind. She’ll need to find the grail before it falls into enemy hands and a prophecy comes true… a prophecy where the immortal life of someone she loves may very well come to an untimely end.
Genre: NA Urban Fantasy, Romance
Title: Templar Scrolls
Series: Nia Rivers Adventures #3
Author: Jasmine Walt+Ines Johnson
Pubilsher: Dynamo Press
Source: Jasmine Walt
Pages: 192
Date: 9.14.17
Rating: 3.9/5
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Dear Reader,
If you know me by now, you’ll know I don’t like history. It forces me to rely too much on what someone says and all it takes is enough convincing to make something ‘history’. You don’t even have to convince a lot of people, just enough to spread the word through teaching and books. And not everything gets taught, mind you. Like someone once said, only the winners tell the tale. So where am I going with this? Well, this book is all about teaching you history. You’d think I wouldn’t touch something like that, but I sincerely enjoy Jasmine Walt’s story-telling, so I bought the first book. And after reading it, I discovered that there was another character besides Nicholas Cage’s to make me enjoy history: Nia Rivers.
“Any book that makes me like history is worth checking out.”
So Nia and her partner/best friend, Loren go on adventures. They survived a near extinct tribe bent on killing them and battled alongside the Greek Gods. This time, it’s King Arthur who calls them to his side as he needs her help in locating the Holy Grail before their enemies, the Templar Knights, do.
Now I’m totally invested in Nia by now, because of my admiration for her sass and ability to maintain her status of strength. She’s had her ups and downs, she’s made mistakes. But she always picked herself back up and held her chin high, refusing to dwindle in a pity party for long. I appreciate that. I also appreciate that she doesn’t deal with nonsense (well unless it’s blonde with blue eyes) and just gets things done. Loren’s similar, but the difference between her and Nia is that she lives life to the fullest and enjoys every naughty minute. She’s a riot, and I’m pretty sure that’s why she’s my favorite lol.
Story wise, I struggled with the beginning. It had an intense opening but was executed so slowly that it took me a few tries before I finally got over that hump (oh and please remember that this is my personal opinion, yeah? Okay). Once people started talking, I quickly got into the flow. There’s only so much of the same monologue I can take before it gets repetitive, but I understand it’s a necessary evil to catch up readers who may have forgotten about what she’d been through. I get that. Just didn’t like trudging through it. Especially when things got personal with Loren and Nia’s past.
Now don’t get me wrong cause I love when Nia’s past is revealed, but it felt weird to me because their pasts were being focused on, but the story line kept pulling me back to a mission that just didn’t feel as fun, anymore. If you were a history buff, maybe it’d be fun to be present in ‘this’ or ‘that’ place, but take away the names, and you’re just following them on a wild goose chase. And because I so desperately want to know more about the two women, this just started to feel like a filler every time I got to another chapter. I tried not to take it like that, though, because at the same time, it wasn’t bad. I just wanted the other parts of this story told more lol.
So all in all, it was satisfying. I got a bit of a reveal with what Nia really is, I know who Loren is, and I got a pretty awesome plot-twist in the end. It’s an overall recommend for those who like adventure and mystery, and if you’re a history buff, definitely check out this series.
Kole.Writes 