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I am a HUGE fan of Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn website and have been looking forward to her debut thriller novel, Pentecost. I purchased both the paperback and Kindle editions and don’t regret a single penny spent.

However, I have a few disclaimers to put out before I continue my review: I am an editor (so I notice mistakes a bit too easily, but inevitably there will be one in this review), and I am an aspiring novelist (which forces me to study other novels for plot, characterization, technique, etc. rather than simply reading for the enjoyability of it).

Pentecost is a solid fiction debut from Penn. It’s supposed to be a religious thriller along the lines of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci code, but I found the style and pacing had more in common with the Indiana Jones and National Treasure mystery adventure genre. Pentecost takes readers on a global trip from India to England, from Italy to Tunisia, from Iran to the US.

After the resurrection of Jesus, the 11 remaining Apostles took 12 stones (later used to cast lots for Judas’s replacement) from the tomb of Jesus as a symbol of their brotherhood. After the ascension of Jesus into heaven, these stones were empowered by God through fire at the first Pentecost in which all manner of wonderful signs and miracles occurred. After Pentecost, the 12 Apostles scattered throughout the world, taking the stones with them and passing them on to Keepers for preservation.

Now some 2000 years later, the day of Pentecost is fast approaching along with a meteor shower that hasn’t been seen on earth since the first Pentecost. A mysterious group named Thanatos (that may have some link to Nazis during Hitler’s heyday) wants to gather all the stones together for evil and usher in a religious war. Joseph Everett, an Arizona politician who already possesses two stones, will stop at nothing to get all the stones in one place in time for Pentecost so he can heal his mentally ill twin brother, Michael. Even the British government agency ARKANE (Arcane Religious Knowledge And Numinous Experience Institute) is vested in getting the stones, and it has commissioned agent Jake Timber to find them.

Enter the Israeli Morgan Sierra, a psychologist interested in religious occurrences who has holed up in Oxford academia in order to get to know the twin sister (Faye) she was separated from shortly after birth. Unbeknownst to Morgan and Faye, they are each Keepers of an Apostle’s stone. Everett, knowing Morgan’s Keeper status and her academic research background, has Faye and Faye’s daughter Gemma kidnapped so that Morgan is forced to recover the remaining stones in an effort to save her sister and niece from the flames of Pentecost. Morgan works in conjunction with Timber/ARKANE to access the worldwide resources needed to accomplish her quest of finding the stones and saving her family.

Pentecost starts off quickly in Chapter 1 and the reader keeps flipping the pages to the end of Chapter 44. If you’re looking for a quick, easy read, I’d recommend Pentecost.

My recommendation of the book comes with small reservations. (See my disclaimers above.) As a reader, I had a few questions that still weren’t answered by the time I read the final page. For example (and perhaps other readers/reviewers can chime in the comments if they’ve read the book):

1. How does Ben know Faye and Morgan’s mother? What was their connection? What is the promise that he made to their mother (other than that he has to protect the twins)?
2. At the end of Chapter 14, it seems that Timber hides the stone somewhere but not even the reader knows where he hides it. If he does hide it, how does he get it back?

Another reviewer mentioned that the reader is able to sympathize better with Everett, something I discovered to be true as well. While I rooted for Morgan because she was the heroine, I felt like I wasn’t able to identify with her and her foibles like I could with Everett and his deep love for his brother. It is mentioned that Morgan had a one-night drunken affair with Faye’s husband, but Morgan immediately regrets it and I’m not sure it adds anything to her characterization or any of the plots. I wish I had been able to identify with Morgan more on a human level and not simply through her need to save her family.

I also noticed a few grammatical mistakes (most commonly “its” and “it’s” were mixed up and sometimes the tenses switched to present instead of remaining past), but perhaps these are issues I noticed only because I have an editor’s eye. These things may not matter to most readers.

Overall, the story is well told. Penn has a gift for describing the various cathedrals, basilicas, and lands that Morgan and Jake journey to, making the setting vibrant and alive throughout the book. Penn is also a master at weaving in religious information throughout the story that push…

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