Helena Soister and The Compass Master

You ever have something you are waiting for and waiting for and waiting for... and then you hear it HAPPENED already? Helena's book release is one of those things. I met Helena originally in the ABNA contest in 2009 and I became a follower of her blog, Becoming Layla. Now Layla is her MC in The Compass Master, and her BLOG is all about pursuing all the skills that her super-spy MC has to have in order to do the amazing things she does. So Helena has learned languages, fencing, lock picking, rock climbing (with the intention of actually scaling buildings), breaking and entering (totally serious). And it is AMAZING to watch an ordinary woman doing all these extraordinary things! Heck, she even was injured in her martial arts class (by a moron who was either mean or overzealous).

And so I've been excited about this book, too. The description of Layla puts me in mind of Sidney in Alias (I loved that show) and the plot of the book sounds fantastic.

What an amazing cover, eh?

Book Description via Amazon: A masterpiece of suspenseful storytelling in the spirit of The Da Vinci Code and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Museums and wealthy private collectors of antiquities turn to Layla Daltry when their more respectable sources fail. As a scholar of ancient manuscripts, she knows what to look for. But as a romantic idealist and thrill-seeker, she takes too many risks and balances on the edge of the law. Yet even Daltry isn’t prepared for the deadly endgame that’s set in motion when her mentor dies. She learns too late that the professor had been secretly following an ancient trail of codes and ciphers that lead to hidden letters capable of changing history. Now an unseen enemy determined to destroy the letters has stolen the professor’s final clues and is shadowing Layla. With her life in the balance, she must race across Europe and find the hiding place. The only expert who can help her is former lover Zach Sandoval – a man who betrayed her once before. Together they discover that the professor and the enemy had, years earlier, chosen them to be both players and rivals in a lightning-paced hunt that is now spiraling out of control into a contest of intrigue, treachery, and lethal mystery.

(Doesn't it look fantastic!?)

Helena is going to be my guest later this week, sharing a little more, but I thought this definitely needed the push NOW!