Find out the latest indie author news. For FREE.

ADVERTISEMENT

Greenleaf Book Group
Service Provider
Treasures of the Lochs
A long-lost treasure, a deadly chase, and a magnificent beast of legends For almost three hundred years, people have searched for one of the greatest treasures in history—the lost gold of the Scottish Jacobites. Following his father’s death and a brazen late-night break-in at the United States Naval Academy, Lieutenant Carter Porter, his life and career in tatters, unwittingly joins the quest. In Scotland, Hassie Douglass, a spirited young employee of a luxury inn situated on the picturesque shores of Loch Ness, thinks her prayers have been answered when she stumbles across four old gold coins that may be part of the Jacobite treasure. But she can’t tell anybody how she really found them; they would think she had lost her mind. Who would believe she followed a strange, ethereal voice emanating from the loch? Struggling to accept what she heard, she can’t deny that the gold in her hand is real. The allure of such a valuable cache draws evil, like the moth to a flame. No sooner does Carter receive a strange bequest from his late father and Hassie’s find is publicized than a shadowy, well-armed group of mercenaries attacks each of them. Soon, Carter’s and Hassie’s fates are joined, and their survival depends on solving more than one ancient mystery while facing their worst nightmares. Blending historical fact and Scottish legend within an action-packed adventure, Treasures of the Lochs is an exciting, powerful story of faith, friendship, and redemption.
Reviews
White’s ambitious, fast-paced treasure-hunt thriller connects historical fact, violent villains, a mystical beast, and a good-old fashioned treasure hunt. Disgraced Navy honor guard Lieutenant Carter Porter is drunk when Russian mercenaries break into the U.S. Naval Academy Chapel that houses the tomb of Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones. Carter thinks the break-in is linked to the tattered journal his recently deceased father left him, an heirloom that once belonged to General Horace Porter, a distant ancestor, who delivered Jones’ body from its original resting place in Paris to America. When Carter receives a mysterious letter containing a plane ticket to Scotland and a request to bring the journal, he figures he has nothing left to lose and makes the trip. At the Bonnie Ness Inn, he bumps into 15-year-old motel clerk Hassie Douglass, who is being hounded by the press because she found four gold coins suspected of being from the fabled lost treasure of Loch Arkaig.

Polished, propulsive, and boasting intrigue at every turn, the story reads like a blockbuster cinematic adventure. Hassie and Carter are soon joined by Royce MacArthur, deputy of the Right for Scotland independence movement, who suspects the treasure, given by Spain to fund the Stuart clan’s supplantment of the British monarchy in Scotland, was moved in 1753 and given to John Paul Jones’ father. With Hassie’s knowledge of where she found the coins, Carter’s journal with cryptic clues to finding the elusive treasure, and Royce’s historical information, the trio must find the treasure before the deadly mercenaries chasing them do.

White propels the story through kidnappings, murder, cars being run off the road, the David’s Tower ruins of Edinburgh Castle, the golden relic of an Incan god, and a meeting with Nessie (a name that the creature hates, incidentally). The historical facts blend intuitively with iconic fantasy and amiable characters for a suspenseful adventure worthy of Harrison Ford or Nicolas Cage.

Takeaway: Action-packed treasure hunt with peril and warmth worthy of blockbusters.

Comparable Titles: Preston & Child, Brad Meltzer’s The Book of Lies.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

ADVERTISEMENT

Loading...