A Review of The Echo Prophecy by Lindsey Fairleigh

The Echo Prophecy is the story of Lex, a seemingly normal graduate student working as an archaeologist in Egyptian studies, more specifically, as a translator. When Alex suddenly gets asked to be a part of a major dig in Egypt by the dashing Marcus Bahir, everything in her life begins to change. Admittedly, this book began fairly weakly. The secondary characters, specifically, were not well sketched out, and the background of Lex's family was thin. Why, for example, do Lex and her sister Jenny not get along? Their "make up" scene had little background information and seemed a convenient vehicle to make her a target later in the book. This seemed to happen quite a bit, as well as a lack of information about secondary plot points. Once I was about a third of the way through the book, however, the writing suddenly got much better, more complex plot revelations were introduced, and the story became much more riveting. The Nejeret and Nejerette characters are by far the most complex and with the most explanation of their backgrounds and pre-story lives. Even Horu/Marcus, as an Egyptian god, doesn't come off as laughable, but instead fascinating. Overall, this story is driven by a fascinating narrative drive that took off and was quite the adventure. I look forward to reading more of this trilogy. ARC provided by Netgalley