The Magic Circle

Katherine Neville's The Eight is much admired, and her second book A Calculated Risk not so much. So I started her third novel, The Magic Circle, with moderate expectations, partly because of the jacket blurb made it sound a bit over the top.

Alas, I could never get into it. The first bit, about an intrepid woman archeologist in the late Victorian era (almost lost on that premise already) unearthing the mythic oracle of something-or-other didn't engage me like it should have. And when I dozed off in the bath and dropped the book in the water, I watched the cover curl up like a rose petal and tried to feel some regret. Didn't happen. Clearly the story had failed to grip me, and the book went into the trash unmourned. So if the story makes a dramatic recovery in the second quarter, I didn't get that far. Someone else will have to tell you.