Sanctus (The Sanctus Trilogy)

This was the best, most frustrating, and creepy trilogies that I have read in a long time. These books substantiate without skipping a beat that the hierarchy of the Church with their male egocentric self-serving agendas will always come first with no conscience for the resulting collateral damage. It is historical fact that the Church chose desperately to control all the written knowledge they were able to get their hands on. If they could not twist it to their agenda then they destroyed it, locked it up, or just made it up as they went along then turned it into doctrine so that they could shove it down the population’s collective throats to control entire kingdoms, countries, and populations. To have any library with the collected knowledge of so many ancient civilizations locked away so that no one can have access except those “approved” few was and still is criminal. Just look at the Vatican archives, it is exceptionally difficult to get into them to do research. There is so much hidden knowledge in there that the Church has deliberately withheld from the world to ensure that their agenda is not disrupted. They still cling to taboos that were created centuries ago out of ignorance and fear of what they did not understand at the time. Conspiracy theories aside, for centuries the Church has deliberately impeded people using their critical thinking skills. The Church has felt that most people are too ignorant and stupid to comprehend and understand anything other than what the Church approves of. It also has a well-documented dirty history, which for all their so-called piety cannot be whitewashed. In fact, it is a very bloody history – lots of poison, many murders, kidnappings, torture, theft, and even to euthanizing entire populations both Christian and non, etc. is all well documented and cannot be swept under the rug. As long as any religion promotes fear through ignorance vs. allowing people to think for themselves – wars will continue and the collateral damage keeps piling up. This is one series where the reader will cheer the protagonists along all the way to the last page.

I greatly appreciated the strong female characters in the hero role, not what I would have expected! And the resolution was extremely unusual, unexpected and once again surprisingly feminist. But unfortunately, the writing in general was kind of tedious. Lots of books start out by throwing you into the middle of an action scene where you can't get your bearing, but normally the events leading up to that scene are explained in the next few chapters. This one left me hanging for fully 25% of the book before the explanation came as to who the man in that first scene was, where he was and why, which gave the sense of floundering for a very long time.The dialogues felt natural and carried the story along very nicely, but the action scenes were so ridiculously filled with tedious detail that I found myself skimming them. It was like: "He sat down in the car and inserted the key in the ignition. He then turned it three-quarters of the way until he heard the engine catch, then released it, pressing down on the accelerator to rev the engine to life. He pressed down the clutch and slid the gearshift to the far right and back, then accelerated slowly while gradually releasing the clutch until the car started to roll backwards." Instead of saying, "He started the car and backed out."When I saw that there was a sequel, I was torn between wanting to know what happens next and thinking I just can't bear to read any more of this. Shame, because the story really had a lot of good points and could be reworked to be very engaging. Might make a good movie if Hollywood didn't feel the need to always put a man in the hero role.

I was lucky enough to begin this trilogy after all three books had been written and published. I loved, loved, loved the ride and can't wait to go on Simon Toyne's next adventure!!!! I read all three books in two weeks and haven't had that much fun in a really long time. (BTW, I never purchase books since my father loans to me, but I just HAD to buy the last two pieces of this trilogy.) Ya' know, when you think, as an avid reader, I would love to figure out how to do this writing thing and then you stumble across a book (or three) that lays such a clever, brilliantly designed story-line with the development of characters that feel like family (writing style just rocks), this is the thing that makes you go, hmmmmmm. It is so clever and to piece together three books to tie it all up in a bow is simply brilliant. I read too much, get a bit bored by the same old same old. This was an outstanding vacation, well worth every second invested! It kept me up at night very late when in fact I thought reading might just help me sleep. Soooooooo much fun! Thank you, Mr. Simon Toyne!!!! More please!!!!!! I loved the entire series, it wrapped up with a perfect, ingenious and somewhat unexpected ending. I hope you are able to be this inspired once again. Loved the writing style and connection to characters. Keep up the great work!!!!!!!!!!

A brilliant book full of suspense, intrigue and totally absorbing. The characters are completely believable, the locations well described and the plot absolutely riveting.I bought this book (kindle edition) on recommendation from a daily email that I receive that notifies you of good book deals and I am glad that I did. I had not heard of the author, Simon Toyne, previously but I really like his style of writing, unlike some thrillers that I have read recently I did not lose track of any of the characters or their circumstances at any point as the story was cleverly woven into a continuous thread that linked seamlessly across different locations and different parts of the plot.Attention to detail and the undoubted amount of research that has obviously been put into this book made it a standout novel for me. I will definitely be purchasing the two follow up volumes - "The Key" and "The Tower".

If you enjoyed the Robert Langdon series created by Dan Brown, you will love Sanctus.This book has all the intrigue and suspense if a great religious thriller with a cracking storyline. It starts off all over the place with the introduction of various characters but as the book progresses you get to see where each person fits into the story.Events are set in the fictitious city of Ruin in southern Turkey where people trek from far and wide to experience rejuvenating and healing powers of the great monastery situated within the great Taurus mountain range. But all is not straight forward when one of the recently sanctified monks, Samuel, escapes out of a window and climbs this monstrous mountain housing the Citadel only to jump to his death. Samuel's corpse is taken to the local morgue which sets in motion assassin monks looking to retrieve the monk's corpse at any cost. During the autopsy, a link is found with Liv Adamsen, a crime investigative reporter living in the US. Liv decides to fly to Turkey and finds herself in the middle of high spread car chases, murder and kidnappings.What is the Sacrament that causes the Ruin monks to go to such great lengths to deny its existence whilst the Mala hunt for it.The book moves along at a very fast pace with short chapters that any reader can whiz through without trouble. It's a really great book and fortunately the subsequent books in the trilogy have been published so I'm off to read the second book in this series.

This novel is a cross between super hero science fiction and history and horror . It was a real struggle to stick with it and then I wished that I hadn't. It was only because it was recommended to me by someone whose literary taste normally matches mine. Very surprised that it's a series. Sorry, but not for me

The opening chapters of Sanctus are some of the best that I have read this year. Indeed so real is the description of Ruin that Simon Toyne conjures up, that I believed it was a real city until I ‘googled’ it. Despite being a fictional city you can imagine being there looking up at the citadel, a real tribute to the talents of the author.In style the book is similar to the Robert Langdon books of Dan Brown, but with fewer puzzles and more mystery. The plot is fast paced, particularly in the first two third of the book although it does fall away a little at the end. The character development is excellent; the main protagonist, Liv Adamsen is interesting and fits the story well. The other characters in the book are equally interesting and provide a variety of perspectives on the story.The ending felt a little clumsy, however I had enjoyed the book so much up until this point that I felt it was still worth a five star rating. Further, I am already looking forward to the next in the series.Overall, a great beginning to the Sancti trilogy.

Slightly unbelievable combination of evil monks, the SAS, a mystery city, a detective story, blood, murder and genetics. Very easy to read book in very short chapters making it approx 150 pages long. Not brilliantly written but quite acceptable. You have to suspend your disbelief and excuse the rather simplistic ways of getting out of each potential sticky end. It is not on the level of Dan Brown as mentioned by so many reviewers, and to bend history, geography, science to such an extent suggests the author did little research compared to other historical novel authors.The final revelation was the most difficult to comprehend and poorly explained, making the ended more than a little weak although very imaginative and gory. On the whole I enjoyed it but not enough to want to read the sequel. By the way the 4 part version is the same book in 4 parts so no point buying unless free on Kindle. I bought Sanctus as a free offer so was v good value.